House of Representatives
10 September 1980

31st Parliament · 1st Session



Mr SPEAKER (Rt Hon. Sir Billy Snedden) took the chair at 2. 1 5 p.m., and read prayers.

page 1069

PETITIONS

The Clerk:

– Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate Ministers:

Preston Institute of Technology

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that:

Whereas a fully-accredited degree course in chiropractic has been established at Preston Institute of Technology, and

Whereas three hundred students who pay their own fees are in all five years of the programme, and

Whereas students and the profession can no longer carry the financial burden amounting to over$1,000,000 per year, and

Whereas a debt of $240,000 is being incurred in 1 980, and

Whereas if funding is not approved by August the course will close and students’ careers placed in grave jeopardy,

Your Petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled should ensure that funding of the Preston Institute of Technology Chiropractic Programme by the Tertiary Education Commission be no longer delayed.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Baume, Mr Carlton, Mr Haslem, Mr Barry Jones, Mr MacKenzie, Mr Nixon and Mr Shipton.

Petitions received.

National Women’s Advisory Council

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That the National Women’s Advisory Council has not been democratically elected by the women of Australia;

That the National Women’s Advisory Council is not representative of the women of Australia;

That the National Women’s Advisory Council is a discriminatory and sexist imposition on Australian women as Australian men do not have a National Men’s Advisory Council imposed on them.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray:

That the National Women’s Advisory Council be abolished to ensure that Australian women have equal opportunity with Australian men of having issues of concern to them considered, debated and voted on by their Parliamentary representative without intervention and interference by an unrepresentative ‘Advisory Council’.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Roger Johnston, Mr Killen and Mr Martyr.

Petitions received.

Hilton Hotel Bomb Disaster

To the Right Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that they want the victims of the Hilton bomb disaster to receive a fair and just compensation. They remind the Prime Minister and his Government that they found the sum of$190,000 to compensate the Hilton Arcade shopkeepers for their loss of business and we the undersigned regard the loss of life and permanent injury even more important than the loss of business. The police involved were guarding the Prime Minister’s life and one of them lost his life, because the Prime Minister and the other international heads of state were inside the hotel. Three other police were seriously and permanently injured as a result of the bombing. The undersigned petitioners call upon the Prime Minister and his Government to compensate these unfortunate victims.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Baume and Mr Lucock.

Petitions received.

Social Service Payments

To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That there is an urgent need to ensure that the living standard of pensioners will not decline, as indeed, the present level of cash benefits in real terms requires upward adjustment beyond indexation related to the movement of the Consumer Price Index, by this and other means your petitioners urge that action be taken to:

  1. 1 ) Adjust all pensions and benefits quarterly to the Consumer Price Index, including the ‘fixed’ 70s rate.
  2. Raise all pensions and benefits to at least 30 per cent of the Average Weekly Earnings.
  3. Taxation relief for pensioners and others on low incomes by:

    1. The present static threshold of $75 per week for taxation purposes be increased to $100 per week.
    2. A substantial reduction in indirect taxation on consumer goods.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr N. A. Brown and Mr Neil.

Petitions received.

Plant Breeders’ Rights

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth, do humbly pray that the Commonwealth Government:

  1. Note that legislation establishing plant breeders’ rights in other countries has had serious adverse effects, namely:

    1. Virtual monopoly control of seed production has passed into the hands of a few large international corporations seeking to profit from the exclusive rights over plant genetic materials created by such legislation.
    2. The varieties of seeds available have been restricted mainly to hybrids which will not reproduce truly and will not grow without the aid of artificial fertilizers and pesticides, thus maximising corporate profits without regard for the interests of growers and consumers.
    3. The genetic diversity of crops has been eroded, rendering them vulnerable to disease and other environmental threats.
  2. Recognise that maintenance of the genetic diversity of plant varieties is crucial to the continued well-being of the Australian nation, and take all necessary steps to preserve and promote such genetic diversity as a public resource and to prevent exclusive control over plant genetic materials from falling into private hands.
  3. Defend the vital interests of Australian farmers and gardeners, independent Australian seed companies and their employees, and consumers of Australian farm and garden produce, by rejecting any proposal to legislate for the establishment of plant breeders’ rights in Australia.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Nixon and Mr Sainsbury.

Petitions received.

Anti-discrimination Legislation

To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament in Canberra assembled. The petition of certain citizens respectfully showeth:

That currently discrimination in the provision of work, in appointment to jobs and in promotion exists in Australia on particular grounds including, inter alia, grounds of race, ethnic origin, marital status, pregnancy, sex and/or sexual preference; and

That currently discrimination in the provision of unemployment benefits is exercised against particular groups of individuals- in particular, against married women.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray:

That appropriate laws be formulated and passed to outlaw discrimination in Commonwealth employment, in employment of individuals under federal awards, in employment of persons by statutory bodies and quasigovernmental organisations, and in employment of all persons in areas over which Commonwealth and Australian Capital Territory equal opportunity legislation should have jurisdiction; and

That appropriate laws be formulated and passed to outlaw discrimination in the provision of unemployment benefits to all persons without regard to sex and/or marital status.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Baume.

Petition received.

Aboriginal Rights

To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That the humble petitioners respectfully believe that the Federal Government has the power conferred on it by the 1967 Referendum to intervene on behalf of Aboriginal people in any conflict with any State or Territory Government.

Your petitioners therefore pray:

That the Federal Government will assume its full responsibility for Aboriginal Affairs, and use the powers conferred on it by the people of Australia in the 1967 Referendum to intervene on behalf of Aboriginals in any conflict with any State or Territory Government;

That the Government respond to the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional legal affairs on

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders on Queensland reserves which sets out precisely the Commonwealth Constitutional and legal position under Section51 ;

That in addition the Government fulfil its stated policy of self-determination and self-management for Aboriginal people, by funding all housing, health, education, legal, employment strategy and welfare matters concerning Aboriginal people directly through Aboriginal Community based Community controlled organisations.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr N. A. Brown.

Petition received.

National Women’s Advisory Council

To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament assembled. The petition of certain citizens respectfully showeth:

Their support for and endorsement of the National Women’s Advisory Council.

We call on the Government to continue to maintain the National Women’s Advisory Council and increase federal government support for its activities.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Ellicott.

Petition received.

Taxation: Child Care Expenses

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of Parliament assembled in the House of Representatives. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that:

Taxpayers who incur child-care expenses in order to earn income should be able to have those expenses exempt from income taxation in the same way as other taxpayers can deduct business expenses from their assessable income.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Ellicott.

Petition received.

Export of Live Animals

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That the Australian Government promotes carcass trade and that all future shipments of live animals overseas for slaughter be banned, and thereby stop a repetition of the shocking loss of life through burns or drowning as occurred with the incineration or drowning of 40,000 sheep on a ship to abattoirs in the Middle East, or the more recent cruelty to horses being exported for slaughter in Japan.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Roger Johnston.

Petition received.

Queensland Aboriginal Lands Commissioner

To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That Aboriginal people in the State of Queensland do not have a Lands Commissioner.

Your petitioners therefore pray:

That the Federal Government will appoint a Lands Commissioner for Queensland.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Roger Johnston.

Petition received.

Road Funding

To the Right Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:

That local authorities throughout Australia are appalled at the recently announced Commonwealth Government allocation of a mere $628m for roads in 1 980-8 1 . There is extreme disappointment at both the level of total Commonwealth funding for all road categories and at the specific allocation for the local roads category.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray:

  1. That road funding arrangements for 1980-81 to 1982-83 reach at least a total of $2,200m over the triennium.
  2. That the Commonwealth maintain an active financial interest in the funding of all categories of roads.
  3. That the Commonwealth ensure that a proportion of the funds flows through the States earmarked for Local Government purposes.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr MacKenzie.

Petition received.

Education

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament assembled. The petition of certain citizens of New South Wales respectfully showeth:

That the Federal Government did not make increased funding available for government school programs such as:

  1. 1 ) General recurrent.
  2. Migrant education.
  3. Disadvantaged schools.
  4. Special education.
  5. Capital grants.
  6. Multicultural education.
  7. Disadvantaged country areas.
  8. Children in institutions.
  9. Services and Development.
  10. Education Centres.
  11. Special projects.

But increased the money available to the non-government school sector by 5.9 per cent.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will restore and increase substantially, in real terms, the allocation of funds for government school programs.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Lionel Bowen and Mr MacKenzie.

Petitions received.

Family Law Act

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned electors of the Division of Isaacs respectfully showeth:

That the Family Law Act should be amended to limit child support orders to a set scale, to provide custody of children to the parent not primarily responsible for the breakdown of the marriage and establish a set schedule for division of matrimonial property that cannot be varied at the discretion of any judge.

These measures would reduce the divorce rate and reestablish stability and security in family life.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Family Law Act be amended to abolish the maintenance and alimony system.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Burns.

Petition received.

Housing at Woomera: Rent Charges

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of certain electors of the division of Grey respectfully showeth:

That the proposal of a 64 per cent increase in rents to the tenants residing in the township of Woomera, in the State of South Australia, do so declare and consider this proposal to be a gross injustice for the quality and condition of such established properties presently owned, and controlled by the Federal Government of Australia. These properties are indeed in such a state of disrepair, condemn level, and are potential hazard to health.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the rent not be increased until a reassessment be made to the proposal, and examination of the standards of the dwellings and associated facilities in this town be made.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by MrWallis.

Petition received.

page 1071

BEEF INCENTIVE PAYMENTS SCHEME

Notice of Motion

Mr DAWKINS:
Fremantle

– I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:

That the House-

notes with dissatisfaction the failure of the Minister for Primary Industry to answer questions placed on notice in the Senate on 6 March 1980 pertaining to possible payments under the Beef Incentive Payments Scheme to the Prime Minister and five of his Ministers;

notes that an identical question pertaining to the former Minister for Primary Industry, placed on notice on 4 March 1980 was answered on 19 March 1980 and bearing in mind that the scheme has been finalised, the House fears that the answers are being deliberately withheld; and

calls on the Minister for Primary Industry to answer the questions forthwith so that the House can be informed of the extent to which these Ministers were beneficiaries of the scheme.

page 1071

HOUSING

Notice of Motion

Mr UREN:
Reid

– I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:

That this House-

Condemns the Government for its failure to address the critical social problem of inadequate housing,

Declares as a national scandal the Government’s severe cut-backs on public housing expenditure, and

Deplores the large reduction of net payments to the States for housing in 1980-81, because of the fact that at least one per cent of the Australian population is homeless.

page 1072

TWO-AIRLINE POLICY

Notice of Motion

Mr Leo McLeay:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I give notice that, at the next sitting, I shall move:

That this House reaffirms its support for a two-airline policy in Australia; recognises the successfully important role played by Trans-Australia Airlines; and deplores the decision of the 1980 Federal Liberal Party Conference to urge the sale of TAA.

page 1072

QUESTION

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

page 1072

QUESTION

CAPITAL GRANTS TO GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– Is the’ Minister for Education aware that calculations by the Parliamentary Library show that capital grants to government schools by the Fraser Government have fallen by 32 per cent in real terms since 1975, despite the fact that a State by State Schools Commission survey in 1978 showed an enormous backlog of needs? Has the Government adopted a new policy of accepting a lower standard of schooling for Australian children, especially in areas with heavy dependence on government schools and where children come from working class, rural or ethnic families? Finally, does the Government intend to catch up on this backlog if it should squeak back to office?

Mr FIFE:
Minister for Education · FARRER, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I have not seen the research document referred to by the honourable member but I am able to say that for 1981 the Government will provide the same money in real terms as has been provided in 1980 for capital programs in government schools. This position needs to be kept in context with the fact that there is a fall-off in enrolments in Australian schools. Indeed, the projection for next year indicates that there will be some 23,000 fewer students in Australian schools than in 1980. 1 want to indicate also that not only does the Commonwealth Government believe that it is finding sufficient funds for capital works in government schools but also at least some State governments believe that the funds allocated by the Commonwealth are in excess of what is actually needed.

The honourable member for Lalor apparently has not taken the trouble to read the speech I made a week or 10 days ago when I introduced legislation concerning grants to government schools throughout Australia for 1981. In that speech I indicated that the New South Wales Government had asked for a sum of about $6.5m to be transferred from the capital works program to the recurrent program. That indicates, of course, that the New South Wales Government has a lower priority for building schools than has any other government in Australia. I reiterate that the Commonwealth is making a meaningful contribution to government schools throughout Australia. We must keep in mind also that the prime responsibility for school education rests with the States.

page 1072

QUESTION

NATIONAL SERVICE TRAINING

Mr BUNGEY:
CANNING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– Will the Minister for Defence advise what consideration has been given to the reintroduction of either voluntary or conscripted national service training?

Mr KILLEN:
Minister for Defence · MORETON, QUEENSLAND · LP

– On 17 June, following an allegation by a former member of this House that the Government had some such scheme in mind, I put out a statement which I thought at least commanded clarity of language. It was a simple collocation of language: There is no intention on the part of the Government to introduce conscription.

Mr Bryant:

– That is what Jim Forbes said.

Mr KILLEN:

– Ah! The honourable member is awake at long last, after a quarter of a century. I would have thought that that was quite clear. But, lo and behold, my friend the honourable member for Melbourne Ports got himself busy on a hot Sunday afternoon and this is what he had to say:

The Federal Government must make a firm and unequivocal policy statement on conscription before the election.

What does the honourable gentleman expect from me? I have made it; I have made the situation quite clear. The honourable gentleman finished up saying, in this powerful statement which I can only describe as being a magnificent potpourri of nonsense:

The trade union movement will not welcome any form of compulsory civil service - especially if award wages are not paid.

Then my attention was drawn to an article in a forward looking newspaper published in Victoria and rejoicing in the name of the Labor Star. The article begins with the words:

The Federal Government has set the wheels in motion to reintroduce conscription and national service after the next election.

That is a powerful expression of confidence on the part of the Australian Labor Party! Its campaign slogan is ‘Raise the standard’. The Labor Party is tired before it has the flag out. I have stated the case quite clearly; I trust, without ambiguity. There is no proposal on the part of the Government to introduce part time conscription either now or after the next election which we will win with a handsome majority.

page 1073

QUESTION

TECHNICAL AND FURTHER EDUCATION FUNDING

Mr HOWE:
BATMAN, VICTORIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Education.

Government members interjecting -

Mr HOWE:

Mr Speaker, how about shutting up Government members occasionally.

Mr Hayden:

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I draw your attention to the fact that whenever one or two members from the Opposition side of the House rise at Question Time they are greeted with this sort of unseemly response from the Government ranks. It is clearly organised. I might add that you rarely do anything about it, as distinct from your reaction when even a minor murmur arises from the Opposition side.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The point made by the Leader of “the Opposition is perfectly correct. Contrary to what the Leader of the Opposition said, however, I have had to correct the behaviour of honourable members on my right on many occasions. I think it is quite unseemly for members on the Government benches to make that noise when a member of the Opposition rises to ask a question. I believe also that it is appropriate that in the remaining sittings of this House all honourable members listen in silence to the person speaking, and henceforth I will require that.

Mr HOWE:

– I ask the Minister whether it is a fact that the Government cut the rate of increase in technical and further education funding from 1 0.4 per cent in 1 980 to 1 .7 per cent in 1 98 1 in anticipation of substantial money from the school to work transition program flowing into the TAFE sector? Now that the States have refused to cooperate in the program, thus lessening the sum available, does the Government plan to increase the Budget for TAFE to make up the shortfall? If not, will the lack of growth in TAFE contribute to the ludicrous situation where we are importing technicians and tradesmen while there are thousands of young people out of work?

Mr FIFE:
LP

– It is very heartening to witness the renewed interest by the Opposition in education because it is one of the most important areas of government responsibility. The quality of the questions coming forward today indicates how out of touch the Opposition is with the facts and with reality. The fact is that this Government has afforded technical and further education a very high priority. Spending on TAFE by the present Commonwealth Government has increased dramatically over the past three years. If we examine in detail the guidelines statement I made in this House on 22 May last, we will see the exact increases. Those monetary increases, in real terms and in percentage terms, are dramatic. This Government is affording TAFE and other vocationally oriented education programs a very high priority, and we will continue to do so.

The honourable member also mentioned the school to work transition program, and he implied that the States had jettisoned the program. That shows just how out of touch with reality he is. I met with State Ministers for Education in Melbourne two weeks ago. Every Minister present, whether from the Australian Labor Party or from the Liberal and National Country parties, expressed strong support for the school to work transition program. They said that it was a valuable program and one they would support. They wanted the Commonwealth to continue to support it, and they believed it ought to be expanded. The one area of disagreement, of course, is in the area of finance.

Opposition members interjecting -

Mr FIFE:

– That brings a laugh from members of the Opposition - the last of the big spenders. They turned the printing–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister will resume his seat. I ask honourable members on the Opposition benches to remain silent while, the answer is given.

Mr FIFE:

Mr Speaker, members of the Opposition when in government–

Mr SPEAKER:

-I ask the Minister not to make any reference to the interjections.

Mr FIFE:

– Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will come back to the question of the school to work transition program and the differences that exist between the Commonwealth and the States in relation to the financial arrangements. Honourable members on both sides of the House, I hope, will be aware that late last year my predecessor outlined a program to be engaged in by the Commonwealth and State governments over a five-year period. The Commonwealth made it clear that we would provide all the funds in the first year, namely, $25m; that in the second year we would be looking to the States to match our $25m effort with a $9m contribution on a pro rata basis - a very modest requirement on the part of the Commonwealth; and that in the remaining three years of the five-year program we would provide funds on a dollar for dollar basis. When we add together the Commonwealth’s undertakings for the next five years we get a figure of $150m. The Commonwealth is prepared to provide $150m for the school to work transition program over a five-year period, and we are looking to the States to match that effort with another $100m. That would put into place a massive school to work transition program which would be divided between the schools and the TAFE system, roughly on a 50-50 basis. Whether or not the States provide that $100m matching money, the Commonwealth will still provide its money. Despite the refusal to date of the States to join with us in this matching financial arrangement, I hope that the States will reconsider their position and join with us in the future.

page 1074

QUESTION

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ESTIMATES COMMITTEES

Mr MCVEIGH:
DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND

– I ask the Leader of the House: Have the new procedures for consideration of the Estimates been supported by honourable members?

Mr SINCLAIR:
Minister for Special Trade Representations · NEW ENGLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES · NCP/NP

– After those three black years of 1972 to 1975 the Government decided that it would be necessary to find a way by which it could improve the opportunities for the back bench members of the Parliament to participate in its deliberations. With your support, Mr Speaker, and as a result of an initiative by the Prime Minister, we decided that we would adopt the idea of Estimates committees this year by way of a sessional order for the second year. Of course, the concept is to try to give parliamentarians an opportunity to discuss the affairs of those departments for which they have a concern, to meet the bureaucrats who run those departments and to discuss in detail the operation of departments with the Ministers responsible.

More than half of the Estimates committees were not able to convene on the hour scheduled for their meeting because largely they were not attended by members of the Opposition. For example, it will be of interest to honourable members to know that in the field of industrial relations, the Minister for Industrial Relations reported that not one member of the Labor Party even bothered to attend the Estimates Committee meeting. So the opportunity of the Estimates Committee was passed up completely. Even the opportunity of meeting and discussing with senior public servants who are responsible for the operation of–

Mr Lionel Bowen:

-Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Minister for Special Trade Representations was unable to attend the meeting of the Estimates Committee examining his Department’s estimates.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! There is no point of order.

Mr SINCLAIR:

- Mr Speaker–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister will resume his seat. Honourable members on my left will remain silent.

Mr Jarman:

Mr Speaker, I take a point of order. I was chairman of the Estimates Committee to which the Minister referred and not even the shadow Minister was there, let alone any other Labor members.

Mr SPEAKER:

– There is no point of order.

Mr Scholes:

Mr Speaker, on a point of order–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Corio will resume his seat.

Mr Scholes:

– But, Mr Speaker–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will resume his seat. When the House comes to order I will call the honourable member for Corio, despite his rudeness. I now call the honourable member for Corio on a point of order.

Mr Scholes:

– Clearly, the matter which is being discussed by the House–

Mr SPEAKER:

– Nothing is being discussed by the House. A question is being answered.

Mr Scholes:

– The Minister is referring to Estimates committees. It would be appropriate if you ruled that we could debate the question of Estimates committees so that the House could express an opinion rather than go through a farcical exercise of political point scoring.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member for Corio has raised a point of order which I accept as a point of order; that is, that I should direct that there be a debate on Estimates committees. Estimates Committee A, which considered the estimates of the Parliament, passed a resolution which called upon me to arrange such a debate. When that matter is reported to the House and is discussed by the House, the House will make its decision because as the honourable gentleman well knows I am a servant of the House. I call the Minister.

Mr SINCLAIR:

– Having attended the meetings of two Estimates committees and not having omitted to attend any as suggested by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, I recall that there were quite a number of difficulties experienced by other committees in obtaining the support of the Opposition to what was, we thought, a very worthwhile initiative by the Government to assist in the consideration of the Estimates in the House of Representatives in a manner different from that pursued in the Senate.

There are two other matters that I might refer to in terms of attendance. I am interested to see the honourable member for Port Adelaide come into the House. He, of course, did not attend the Estimates committee responsible for employment and industrial relations. The honourable member for Blaxland did not attend the Estimates committee responsible for energy. So we have members of the Opposition asserting in this House a point of view with respect to affairs of moment to this nation, but who did not even bother to attend the Estimates committees and take up the opportunity to peruse in depth the estimates for those specific areas. I am sure that the Labor Party is quite set on lowering the standard rather than doing anything else.

page 1075

QUESTION

EDUCATION ALLOWANCES

Mr BRYANT:

– My question is directed to the Minister for Education. Honourable members will have noted that he has failed two out of two so far. I ask the Minister–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I indicate to the honourable member for Wills that, despite his long service in this House, when asking a question he is not entitled to make a comment of that kind. I now ask him to call for information from the Minister and not to make such comments.

Mr BRYANT:

– I was just being helpful, sir. I ask the Minister why none of the student allowances, the tertiary education allowances, postgraduate awards, isolated children’s allowances or secondary, assistance was raised in the Budget to anything like its value when last increased, which in most cases was in 1977. Does the Minister accept that erosion due to inflation has caused great hardship to many students and that this has not been overcome by the Budget increases? Does this represent a new policy in the area of assistance or are the increases just an ad hoc handout designed to give a good impression in an election year and in the hope that people will not realise that the real value of these forms of assistance has fallen?

Mr FIFE:
LP

– I am delighted to have a question from the honourable member for Wills because he was the only member of the Opposition who showed an interest in education when the estimates for the Department of Education were being considered in the Estimates Committee.

Mr Anthony:

– Yes, but he is retiring. What was the use?

Mr FIFE:

– He was the only member of the Opposition to come to the Estimates Committee and to deal with this very important subject. As the Acting Prime Minister has pointed out, the honourable member is about to retire from this Parliament so it indicates that no member of the Opposition who hopes–

Mr Young:

– I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Government members - Where were you?

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will resume his seat. Members on the Government benches are making too much noise. I ask them to remain silent.

Mr Young:

- Mr Speaker, it is obviously a design of the Government to try to harass–

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will make a point of order.

Mr Young:

– I am raising a very important question about the procedure of this Parliament, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will state his point of order.

Mr Young:

– I am raising a very important point about the way in which the Government arranged for the Estimates committees to meet on days on which the Parliament was not to meet. The Government gave us three days notice about the intention of these committees to meet. It was not the arrangement that was made 12 months ago about these committees.

Mr SPEAKER:

– There is no point of order. The honourable gentleman will resume his seat.

Mr Young:

– It was just a further act of this Government telling lies about the way in which the Parliament is going to operate.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I have warned the honourable member for Port Adelaide successively–

Mr Innes:

– Why don’t you warn the Minister for telling lies?

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable member for Melbourne will remain silent. I will not, in the remaining days of this Parliament, tolerate terms such as ‘lies’, ‘misrepresentation’, et cetera. I call upon the honourable member for Port Adelaide to withdraw and I ask him not to use that language.

Mr Young:

- Mr Speaker, I said that the Government was telling lies; I did not indicate who.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will cease using that form of language. I ask him to withdraw.

Mr Young:

Mr Speaker, you have used some very unparliamentary terms in years gone by.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I warn the honourable gentleman. I call upon him to withdraw.

Mr Young:

– I withdraw.

Mr Hayden:

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order, nonetheless.

Government members interjecting-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Honourable gentlemen on the Government benches will remain silent.

Mr Hayden:

– I do not want to take up much time, Mr Speaker. 1 merely remind you that you and I have been here together for a long time and it has been the ruling of a succession of Speakers that, when an allegation of the nature made, allegedly, by the honourable member for Port Adelaide is made about a collectivity such as the Government or the Liberal Party, it is acceptable in terms of procedures in this House. When a particular person is identified some disputation arises. Can you just briefly outline why you have changed that long-standing ruling?

Mr SPEAKER:

-I have changed it, but not today. I changed it earlier, indeed last year, because a member on the Government side made an allegation about Ministers of a former Labor Government and that led to all former Ministers of the Labor Government standing and saying: ‘It was not I. It was not I’. It was quite reasonable for them to do so and it became apparent that when language of that kind is used it does provoke in the House ill will and a response in equally bad language. The consequence is that I have ruled that even though such a remark may not be about any specified person the nature of the language is unparliamentary and should not be used at all.

Mr Hayden:

Mr Speaker, do I have it clear? You can rule at will?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Yes, you do have it clear that it is my duty to uphold the dignity of the House. I believe that decision was designed to uphold the dignity of the House and I will persist with it and I will require its observance by all honourable members.

Mr Young:

– I wish to speak further to the point of order, because that requires an extension of your ruling. You well know, as Speaker of the House, the difficulty we have in making arrangements when the Estimates committees, which are an extension of the House, meet. The Ministers are not including in their remarks the reasons Opposition members were not present. It seems to me to be to the benefit of the Parliament, in which you take a great deal of interest, that Ministers do not make bland accusations and name us, as has happened in answers I have heard from the Minister for Education and George Sinclair–

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman–

Mr Young:

– Rather they should be telling the Parliament–

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will resume his seat.

Mr Young:

– Why people could not be present.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will resume his seat. The honourable member well knows that the words I required him to withdraw were a personal reflection upon one or more members. The question of whether or not members of the Opposition were present at meetings of Estimates committees is a matter of argument. Their responses can be made at an appropriate time. I will not permit language of the kind used by the honourable member for Port Adelaide.

Mr FIFE:

– When the honourable member for Port Adelaide took his point of order I was in the process of paying a compliment to the honourable member for Wills for the very deep and real interest that he has taken in education and particularly for the time he spent in considering the education vote before the Estimates Committee. Unlike other members of the Opposition he was able to keep his priorities in the right order. On that occasion he arranged his program so that he could come along, as indeed did Government members. I fail to understand why it is that Government members can arrange their programs in order to deal with parliamentary business and members of the Opposition–

Mr SPEAKER:

-I call upon the Minister to draw his answer to a conclusion.

Mr Hayden:

– It is quite obvious the Minister is trying to hide behind this diversion.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will make a point of order.

Mr Hayden:

– It is quite obvious that he is trying to hide behind this diversion.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman is arguing the issue. What is his point of order?

Mr Hayden:

– This has nothing to do with the question. If the Government wants a debate on this issue, it has a great deal to explain for the failure to raise quorums for a number of these committees. The Government is responsible for the quorums.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I call the Minister for Education.

Mr Hayden:

– The committee which examined the estimates of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is a classic case. The Government could not provide a quorum.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I ask the Minister for Education to draw his answer to a conclusion.

Mr FIFE:

– The honourable member for Wills asked me a question about the level of tertiary assistance and, indeed, the level of assistance under various student assistance schemes. I remind him and, indeed, the House and the Australian public that the Government on this occasion has raised the TEAS allowance by 10 per cent. Some of the other allowances were raised by 20 per cent. Indeed, one or two were raised in excess of 20 per cent. There was also a movement in the means test. This has been liberalised to take into account the movement in the consumer price index. I need also remind the House that this is an annual event so far as the Government is concerned. The Government reviews student allowances on an annual basis and these decisions are taken prior to the Budget. So on this occasion there has been a movement both in relation to the rate of allowance and also in relation to the means test. My recollection is that on each preceding occasion there has been a movement in the means test.

page 1077

QUESTION

DISALLOWED QUESTION

Mr Giles having addressed a question to the Treasurer -

Mr SPEAKER:

– The question is out of order.

page 1077

QUESTION

NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS: CAPITAL FUNDING

Mr John Brown:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I direct my question to the Minister for Education. Is it a fact that the New South Wales State Planning and Finance Committee, which administers capital funding to non-government schools in that State, will have before it applications for grants for new schools or extensions to the value of approximately $25m for 1981 when the funds available will amount to no more than $7.3m? Does the Government accept that unless this demand can be met, standards in our schools must inevitably fall?

Mr FIFE:
LP

– The Government is very concerned about the problems facing non-government schools throughout Australia. In 1973 the Karmel Committee identified certain resource levels that ought to be reached by all schools, government and non-government, throughout Australia by 1979. Generally speaking those resource levels were reached by all government schools, or all government school systems, well before the target date. Unfortunately, the great majority of nongovernment schools - I think something to the order of 90 per cent - have resource levels about 30 per cent below the resource levels of the average government schools. For that reason the Government has been giving attention to the needs of non-government schools.

In the recent guidelines statement that I put down in the House on behalf of the Government I indicated that not only would we preserve the precentage link between the cost of educating a child in a government school and the per capita payments made in relation to children attending non-government schools but also we would increase by one percentage point the per capita payment to level six schools. Level six, of course, is the lowest resource level in the non-government school sector. The main thrust of the honourable member’s question was in relation to capital funding for the non-government school sector. It is a fact that for 1981 the Commonwealth Government has approved a sum in real terms equal to the sum made available in 1980. Along with taking that decision we took another decision of great significance which will throw out of balance the figures that the honourable member used in his question. As well as providing a sum of somewhere between $28m and $29m for capital works for non-government schools in 1 98 1 , the Government has agreed to approve forward commitments for 1982 and 1983 up to 90 per cent of the funds made available for 1981. The net result of this is that some $15m more in approvals will be available in 1981 than would otherwise have been the case.

page 1077

QUESTION

JOB CREATION SCHEMES

Mr LUCOCK:
LYNE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Can the Acting Prime Minister advise the House of the Government’s experience with job creation schemes and of their effectiveness in achieving long term answers to the unemployment problem?

Mr ANTHONY:
NCP/NP

– I think it is important that Australia recall the experience had with these job creation schemes, particularly as the alternative government is making great play of the prospect of introducing schemes that might substantially cure the unemployment problems. Back in 1972 the then Liberal-National Country Party Government introduced the rural unemployment relief scheme. The scheme was tried at that time as an experiment to see how it would help the problems in rural areas, but in 1973 when the Labor Party came to office it decided that it was too expensive and it was wasteful.

Mr Young:

– We had full employment, you dummy!

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The right honourable gentleman will resume his seat. I have been very tolerant with the honourable member for Port Adelaide. I call on him to withdraw his interjection. I will not warn him again; I will name him immediately.

Mr ANTHONY:

– The Labor Government found that that sort of scheme was wasteful even though it was administered by local government authorities. At the end of 1973 the Labor Government decided to bring in the Regional Employment Development scheme, which, of course did not have the same sorts of controls as the previous scheme. It was open to anybody to apply for money.

Dr Everingham:

– Your council did not use it, apparently.

Mr ANTHONY:

– Councils were involved, but so were other organisations, as we all remember. An enormous amount of money was spent. In fact, it became such a drain on the then Labor Government that in 1975 it cancelled the scheme. It could not sustain the pressures of the money needed to give employment to people.

These are two occasions when governments had introduced job creation schemes and the Labor Party cancelled them because they were unproductive and wasteful. Now the Labor Party is pretending to the Australian people that it will cure or relieve the unemployment problems by reintroducing those sorts of job creation schemes. I hope the Australian people realise that they are being fooled by the alternative government - the Australian Labor Party - about unemployment being solved in this way. There is only one way to solve unemployment and that is to get the economy on a sound basis - it certainly would not be sound under the Labor Party’s policies of inflation - and to concentrate on helping the private sector expand and develop. When I hear criticism by the Leader of the Opposition of resource development projects and new industrial projects, what hope is there of curing the unemployment in this country?

page 1078

QUESTION

DISALLOWED QUESTION

Mr Dawkins proceeding to address a question to the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman’s question is out of order. If he wishes to make any implication about any member of this House, it will be by substantive motion.

Mr Dawkins:

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs has ministerial responsibility for proposed companies legislation. I was going to refer him to a particular incident, of which he has intimate knowledge, to discover whether the legislation he proposes will cover circumstances like that. It does not seem to me to be inappropriate to refer to–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman should reframe his question and eliminate from it the implication I heard him make.’ He should reframe his question so that he asks for the information he is seeking, without making any implications. I call the honourable member for Diamond Valley.

Mr Young:

– I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I suggest that you look at the question being asked by the honourable member for Fremantle because I do not think that it carries any reference to the Minister, other than in seeking information.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I will leave it to the honourable member for Fremantle to rephrase his question. If he stands and he is the only person standing, I will call him. In the meantime, I have called the honourable member for Diamond Valley.

page 1078

QUESTION

ASSETS AND INCOMES OF AUSTRALIANS

Mr N A Brown:
DIAMOND VALLEY, VICTORIA · LP

– I ask the Treasurer whether the Government is contemplating a star chamber inquisition into the assets and incomes of Australians, or whether he is aware that any other such inquiry is contemplated. In that context, I ask: Generally speaking, are the records and accounts of Australians with respect to their incomes and assets private and matters of confidentiality? Is he aware of any risk at present to that privacy and confidentiality or of any risk generally to the incomes and assets of Australians?

Mr HOWARD:
Treasurer · BENNELONG, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I thank the honourable member for Diamond Valley for that question. I take the opportunity to say quite clearly to him that no inquiry of that type is contemplated by the Government. Indeed, members on this side of the House were very concerned to see a reference to that type of approach in the document grandly entitled ‘The Basis of an Understanding Between a Future Labor Government and the Australian Trade Union Movement’. One of the most significant proposals foreshadowed in that document was an inquiry, with suitable powers, into the distribution of income and wealth in the Australian community.

Opposition members - Hear, hear!

Mr HOWARD:

– ‘Hear, hear!’ say the members of the Opposition. The document went on to make it quite clear that that inquiry would be given all necessary powers to make it certain that anybody who did not want to disclose information to that inquiry would not be able to sustain that position. That is precisely the sort of thing that the Opposition will not want to be reminded of as a certain event approaches. It is very much in line with a large number of other promises, particularly in the taxation area, about which the Opposition also does not want to be reminded as we approach the forthcoming election.

I would like to remind the House that not only does the Labor Party propose that type of inquiry into the distribution of income and wealth in Australia but also it remains very much committed to the idea of a capital gains tax. It is a proposal that the Labor Party has constantly said it is committed to, and as the election approaches the Labor Party says it will have an inquiry into the matter. The truth of the matter was stated by the Leader of the Opposition in March 1979. He said:

I can make no apology for it. The Opposition is committed to the introduction of a capital gains tax.

In case there should be any doubt about the attitude of the Opposition, I remind the House of the attitude expressed in May 1978 by the honourable member for Gellibrand. He said:

Therefore, the Labor Party insists that a society concerned with equity in both the tax system and the distribution of wealth must support the application of some form of tax on capital. By this we do not mean that the ordinary people should pay tax on their small capital accumulations -

I would like to hear the Leader of the Opposition’s definition of ‘ordinary’. If it is anything like the definition of ‘ordinary’ used by some of his predecessors as Labor Treasurer, we would get some very peculiar results. I return to the quotation of the statement of the honourable member for Gellibrand, who stated:

By this we do not mean that ordinary people should pay tax on their small capital accumulations but that the wealthy should pay by estate or gift duties or by some other form of tax on capital.

So, we are left with the inescapable conclusion that a future Labor government, in the capital area, will do one of two things: It will introduce a very confiscatory capital gains tax or it will reintroduce estate and gift duties. That is the only conclusion that we are left with from the statements of the Leader of the Opposition and the honourable member for Gellibrand. The Leader of the Opposition told us in his Chamberlain Memorial Lecture that he lamented - I quote again from those words that I believe will haunt him in the weeks to come- ‘the rapid spread of philosophies based on lower taxes and smaller government’. The man who would now believe he leads a party that believes in lower taxation then stated:

This sort of approach strikes directly at the conventional democratic socialist notion that equality and equity can only be assured by a stronger public sector.

He called it a deeply dispiriting doctrine. His colleague, the honourable member for Gellibrand, said that the Labor Party’s first task on gaining office - he said that that could not be before 1983- would be to persuade the public that it had to rebuild the public sector and that the public should pay much higher taxation. I hope that honourable members opposite enjoyed some of those quotations. I remind them of the words of the Leader of the Opposition in his reply to the Budget:

I trust honourable members opposite enjoyed those quotations. They had better get used to them. They will hear them repeated a lot in the weeks to come.

page 1079

QUESTION

ASBESTOS: EXPORT GRANTS

Mr Les Johnson:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– My question is directed to the Minister for Trade and Resources. Does the Export Expansion Grants Act 1978 list asbestos in the list of goods ineligible for grant purposes? Does the Minister accept responsibility for the payment of $395,673 made for the grant year 1978-79 to the Chrysotile Corporation of Australia Pty Ltd, which is solely engaged in the production and export of asbestos as a subsidiary of Woodsreef Mines Ltd?

Mr ANTHONY:
NCP/NP

– If the Export Development Grants Board has approved a grant to the Chrysotile organisation it has approved it because it is in accord with the Act. If the honourable member wants further information as to whether export grants have been given I will be very happy to provide it.

page 1079

QUESTION

DRUG TRAFFICKING

Mr Donald Cameron:
FADDEN, QUEENSLAND · LP

– I direct my question to the Minister for Administrative Services. Not wishing to bring upon myself the same fate–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I will give the honourable member one opportunity to ask for information, not to make a statement.

Mr Donald Cameron:
FADDEN, QUEENSLAND · LP

– I draw the Minister’s attention to the widely publicised findings of Melbourne coroner Mason on the inquest into the deaths of Douglas and Isabel Wilson. Is the Minister aware that Mr Mason found that corrupt law enforcement officers in the Commonwealth Service had passed information on to the Clark heroin gang? Is the Minister concerned that grave damage has been done to the trust that must exist between enforcement forces and the people and also to enforcement officers, who often risk their lives in their operational work in the murky world of drug trafficking? Will the Minister assure the House that he is taking or has taken measures necessary to prevent even the remotest possibility of a repeat episode within the Commonwealth Service?

Mr Lionel Bowen:

– What do you think of that, Mr Minister?

Mr John McLeay:
BOOTHBY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

– What I think of it is that obviously the honourable member has not read the debate of last night. I commend that debate to all members of the House. It concerned a matter raised by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. He said that the Government had not implemented the law enforcement recommendations of the Australian Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drugs, the Williams royal commission. In fact we have implemented all 59 of them. I think the honourable member for Fadden was referring to allegations against two former members of the Narcotics Bureau in June of last year. That matter was cleared up in the courts in Sydney just a few weeks ago when the two members were acquitted. I have every confidence - I am sure the Government has every confidence - in the integrity of the Australian Federal Police. I commend yesterday’s debate to all honourable members.

page 1080

QUESTION

PROPOSED COMPANIES LEGISLATION

Mr DAWKINS:

– I refer the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs to the proposed companies legislation and the provisions relating to disclosure of changes of ownership. Specifically, I refer to a series of events undertaken by companies and persons which may not exclude the Minister. Is the Minister aware that the share registers of the companies Stirling West Pty Ltd, Greenbank Pty Ltd and Frederic Salon Pty Ltd were transferred from Perth to Darwin on 10 October 1978; that the two directors then resigned and three days later were replaced by two Victorian directors; that the company addresses were transferred back to Perth by Rickford Administration on 27 February 1978; that the share capital was redivided on 20 March 1978; and finally that the companies were liquidated on 9 October 1979 and the assets of just over $500 each were distributed, at which time the sole owner of each company was Hulldale Pty Ltd of Melbourne? Will the legislation require companies involved in these practices to provide information to the Companies and Securities Commission about reasons for such changes of ownership? Can the Minister explain the reason for the changes in the ownership of the three companies mentioned?

Mr GARLAND:
Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry and Commerce · CURTIN, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– In respect of the–

Mr Armitage:

– Careful. Don’t mislead here.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister will resume his seat. The honourable member for Chifley will withdraw.

Mr Armitage:

– I withdraw.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I ask the honourable member for Chifley to remain silent.

Mr GARLAND:

– As many honourable members will know, my family and I have had business connections for many years, both before and since I came into this Parliament. Some redundant companies were sold at about the time the honourable member mentions. As far as I am aware, those matters have no connection with the co-operative companies and securities legislation which all the States and the Commonwealth are putting through and which on behalf of the Government I have been involved in since my appointment to this portfolio. The honourable member seeks information which clearly is intended to denigrate my position–

Mr Dawkins:

– It is not. Just tell us why.

Mr GARLAND:

– Well, of course that is what it is; its intention is to denigrate my position in connection with the Ministerial Council for Companies and Securities. I can only tell the honourable member, as he well knows, that a royal commission made a recommendation on this whole question of pecuniary interests and the Government announced its policy in relation to that. I am abiding by those guidelines, as is required by the Prime Minister.

page 1080

DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Mr STREET:
Minister for Industrial Relations · Corangamite · LP

– For the information of honourable members I present the first report of the Department of Industrial Relations.

page 1081

LAW REFORM COMMISSION

Mr HOWARD:
Treasurer · Bennelong · LP

– For the information of honourable members I present the text of a statement relating to the report by the Law Reform Commission on privacy and the census.

Motion (by Mr Sinclair) proposed:

That the House take note of the paper.

Debate on motion (by Mr Hurford) adjourned.

page 1081

REPATRIATION COMMISSION

Mr ADERMANN:
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs · Fisher · NCP/NP

– Pursuant to section122 of the Repatriation Act 1920I present the annual report of the Repatriation Commission for 1979-80.

page 1081

DEPARTMENT OF HOME AFFAIRS

Mr ELLICOTT:
Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for the Capital Territory · Wentworth · LP

– For the information of honourable members I present the Department of Home Affairs interim statement and financial tables for the year ended 30 June1980.

page 1081

AUSTRALIAN FILM AND TELEVISION SCHOOL

Mr ELLICOTT:
Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for the Capital Territory · Wentworth · LP

– For the information of honourable members I present the interim statement of the Australian Film and Television School for the year ended 30 June 1980.

page 1081

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION- REPORTS

Trafficking in Fauna

Mr THOMSON:
Minister for Science and the Environment · Leichhardt · NCP/NP

– For the information of honourable members I present the text of a statement relating to the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation on trafficking in fauna.

Motion (by Mr Sinclair) proposed:

That the House take note of the paper.

Debate (on motion by Mr Hurford) adjourned.

Preservation of Quinkan Galleries, Cape York Peninsula

Mr THOMSON:
Minister for Science and the Environment · Leichhardt · NCP/NP

– For the information of honourable members I present the text of a statement relating to the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on

Environment and Conservation on the preservation of Quinkan Galleries, Cape York Peninsula.

Motion (by Mr Sinclair) proposed:

That the House take note of the paper.

Debate (on motion by Mr Hurford) adjourned.

page 1081

PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS

Mr YOUNG:
Port Adelaide

- Mr Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Does the honourable gentleman wish to make a personal explanation?

Mr YOUNG:

– Yes. During Question Time accusations were made - some were general and some were specific - about me and other members of the Opposition not being available or in attendance at Estimates committee meetings. It is rather a tragedy for the Parliament that such accusations have arisen because there was a genuine attempt in 1 979 to get these committees under way. I think you, Mr Speaker, lent force to the fact that these committees could play some part in the Parliament.

Mr Sinclair:

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I understand that the honourable gentleman is responding by way of a personal explanation. I am concerned to understand where the personal explanation begins. I suggest he is debating the issue. I suggest he might identify where he believes he has been misrepresented instead of engaging in a debate on the subject of Estimates committees.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I think the honourable member for Port Adelaide was carrying on from a point that he made earlier thinking that the point of misrepresentation was apparent. I think he is saying that he was misrepresented in that it was said that he was not there, and he is now making a personal explanation in relation to his absence from the Committee. Is that correct?

Mr YOUNG:

– I think it is, Mr Speaker. In addition, I think it is very important for people reading Hansard to understand the role of the Estimates committees in the House of Representatives. Some people reading Hansard and the accusations made by George Sinclair-

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable member is now arguing the issue. He can make a personal explanation which relates to his non-attendance.

Mr YOUNG:

Mr Speaker, on Tuesday last we were given an indication by the Manager of Opposition Business that the House of Representatives Estimates committees may meet on the following Thursday night, Friday and Saturday. The Estimates committee to which I was-

Mr Hodgman:

– He is telling lies.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Denison will withdraw.

Mr Hodgman:

– I withdraw, Mr Speaker.

Mr YOUNG:

– I repeat: On Tuesday of last week at a meeting of the executive of the Opposition we were given notice that it was perhaps the intention of the Government, because of the election fever that we are living in, that the Estimates committees would have to meet when the Parliament was not meeting on Friday last and on Monday of this week. I must say that that is completely contrary to the arrangements that were made on the establishment of the Estimates committees in 1979, which were on the basis that mutual arrangements would be made between the Government and the Opposition. The fact is that many of us, especially those on the Opposition front bench, had commitments which could not be broken on Friday last and on Monday of this week, and it was not possible for us to be present at the committee meetings. The Government has treated the Parliament with absolute contempt in the way it has done this.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman is now arguing the matter.

Mr YOUNG:

– I am not arguing the point at all. What I am saying is that today the Government intentionally tried to present an argument–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman is now arguing the matter.

Mr YOUNG:

– Let me continue with the personal explanation.

Mr Yates:

Mr Speaker, I take a point of order. The honourable member has suggested that the Government has treated the Parliament with contempt. I understood he was trying to make a personal explanation about his position.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I have already dealt with the matter the honourable gentleman is raising. The honourable member for Port Adelaide will make his personal explanation.

Mr YOUNG:

– Absolutely no charges were made in 1979 about members of the Opposition not being present at those committee meetings. Members of the Opposition would have been present at the committee meetings in 1980 had the arrangement that was made last year been kept, but obviously this Government is not a government of honour at all. It breaks arrangements, it breaks conventions, and it does not care what it does.

Mr STREET:
Minister for Industrial Relations · Corangamite · LP

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation. I believe that the Hansard record could be open to an interpretation which might misrepresent me. I would like to set the record straight.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman may proceed.

Mr STREET:

– As has been referred to in the last few minutes, the matter of Estimates committees took up a deal of Question Time and, in particular, my Department was mentioned. At one stage during Question Time there was an interjection along the lines that the Minister was not even present at the meeting of his own Estimates Committee, or something of that kind. I merely wish to place on record that I was present during the entire time the estimates of my Department were discussed, as were the permanent head and senior officers of my Department.

Mr HURFORD:
Adelaide

- Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Does the honourable gentleman claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr HURFORD:

– I claim to have been misrepresented.

Mr SPEAKER:

– He may proceed.

Mr HURFORD:

– I claim to have been misrepresented by the remarks of various Government Ministers during Question Time, when they suggested that the Opposition had not lived up to its responsibilities in relation to the Estimates committees.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Is the honourable gentleman making this explanation in relation to his position as Manager of Opposition Business?

Mr HURFORD:

– Precisely. Mr Speaker, you have taken the very words out of my mouth.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I will permit him to proceed.

Mr HURFORD:

– I point out that when this matter first came before the House on Wednesday, 27 August, the Opposition moved an amendment to the effect that the Estimates committees should report by 7 October rather than by 9 September. Among a number of things I said in that debate on behalf of the Opposition, I said this:

It is absolutely absurd to think that we can achieve the extra scrutiny of this Budget which was stated to be an objective of the honourable member for Moore and the honourable member for McMillan -

And others who have pushed for those Estimates committees:

If these committees are to report on 9 September. That comes to the heart of the Opposition’s amendment.

I then moved that amendment. I went on to say:

The committee system this year is in no way planned to give proper scrutiny to this Budget. We will be having less scrutiny of this Budget in this financial year than we have had for many years - in fact, probably since Federation.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman has made his point.

Mr HURFORD:

– I hope that I have made my point with you, Mr Speaker, and with other honourable members. The point is that not one member from the Government side - very few of them turned up to the committee hearings - crossed the floor and supported the Opposition in its desire–

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman is now arguing the matter. I ask him to resume his seat.

Mr HURFORD:

– Could I have your indulgence–

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable member can have my indulgence if he ceases arguing.

Mr HURFORD:

– I will not argue, other than to explain that I did turn up to Estimates Committee D for the consideration of the estimates of three departments with which I am associated. I made a similar statement, which is to be found in Hansard of 29 August 1980, on behalf of all Opposition members, objecting to the way that these Estimates committees were peremptorily brought on, thus not giving us time to prepare properly for the Estimates committees. I ask you, Mr Speaker, and the House to take note of the remarks made on that occasion as well.

page 1083

QUESTION

ASBESTOS: EXPORT GRANTS

Mr ANTHONY:
Minister for Trade and Resources · Richmond · NCP/NP

– With the indulgence of the House, I should like to reply to the question asked of me by the honourable member for Hughes (Mr Les Johnson) concerning the payment of export incentives to Chrysotile Corporation of Australia Pty Ltd. He inferred that the Act had been breached by those payments. I have been advised by the Chairman of the Export Development Grants Board that initially it appeared that asbestos exported by the Chrysotile Corporation would be ineligible for export expansion grant purposes and that tentative advice to that effect was given to the company. However, the company made a submission and the matter was referred to the Bureau of Mineral Resources for expert advice. On the basis of the advice concerning the extent of beneficiation involved, the Board determined that highly refined asbestos fibres exported by the Chrysotile Corporation were eligible for export expansion grant purposes. The situation remains, therefore, that asbestos - crude, washed or ground, including waste- is ineligible for export expansion grant purposes. This really means that when the Corporation refines asbestos to a high degree it does qualify for benefits under the Export Expansion Grants Act.

Mr Yates:

Mr Speaker, I take a point of order. Will you advise on this point of order? Under the Standing Orders, is it not the overriding duty of every honourable member of this House to be in attendance at meetings of committees to which he is appointed and that his primary duty is to this House, above all other places?

Mr SPEAKER:

-The question of the duty of a member is a matter for the member himself to decide, and for the electors at the appropriate time.

page 1083

PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS

Mr HOLDING:
Melbourne Ports

- Mr Speaker, I desire to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Does the honourable gentleman claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr HOLDING:

– Ida

Mr SPEAKER:

– He may proceed.

Mr HOLDING:

– I claim to have been misrepresented in an answer provided by the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen), when he purported to quote from a news release by me. My interest in the matter of alleged conscription by this Government was raised in early September, when my office was contacted by a member of the Minister’s staff, who sought to know whether the Labor Star was the official journal of the Victorian Branch of the Labor Party and who indicated the Minister’s interest in an article which, on the assumption that the Government may win the next election, alleged that the Government had plans to reintroduce conscription and national service. The article claimed that the information it contained was based on information sourced to senior officers in the Army and in the Department of Defence. Knowing of the Minister’s interest in this matter and being a member of the Administrative Committee of the Victorian Branch of the Labor Party, I had the author of that article questioned by my office. The author stood by both the veracity of his article and its contents and he confirmed the source. Having regard to that fact, I then issued a Press release, which I believe was a completely responsible thing to do, calling upon the Government to make a clear and unequivocal policy statement on the question of conscription and to do so before the next election. I believe, and I have indicated this in that statement, that apart from that source material which has been drawn to the attention of the Minister, it was imperative for the Government to do that by virtue of the fact that–

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable gentleman is now arguing the issue.

Mr HOLDING:

- Mr Speaker, I am not. This is mentioned in the Press release which was referred to by the Minister.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable member is arguing the issue. Where has he been misrepresented?

Mr HOLDING:

– The Minister quoted a section of a Press release which he sourced to me but he did not quote quite critical aspects of it.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable gentleman is entitled to say what was in the Press release.

Mr HOLDING:

– I indicated in the Press release that the basis of my request for a statement by the Government on the question of conscription was related also to the fact that the Prime Minister had told the Australian Olympic Federation with certainty that there would be war in three years. He continued to allege that the situation in Afghanistan posed the gravest defence threat to Australia, graver even than Vietnam when both the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen)–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Is this material in the Press release?

Mr HOLDING:

– Yes. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence were enthusiastic supporters of conscription. The Minister for Defence referred also to a statement in the Press release which was related to the question of civil conscription. The reason I raised the question of civil conscription in the Press release is stated. The Press release reads:

In addition, Mr John Way, a Senior Official of the Federal Office of Youth Affairs, told a National Youth Council of Australia conference in Sydney last weekend that the Government wanted young people’s views on conscription for compulsory civil service.

It was on that basis that I issued the Press release. I stand by it. I think it was a responsible thing to do, although the Minister has taken a week to put together some kind of response and answer–

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will resume his seat. He has completed his personal explanation.

Mr KERIN:
Werriwa

- Mr Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Does the honourable gentleman wish to make a personal explanation?

Mr KERIN:

– I do.

Mr SPEAKER:

– He may proceed.

Mr KERIN:

– It relates to claims made by the Minister for Special Trade Representations (Mr Sinclair) regarding the House of Representatives Estimates committees. I attended eight of those committee meetings, including five on one day, which shows how farcical they are. The Committee meetings I attended were those responsible for dealing with the estimates for the Department of Social Security, the Department of the Capital Territory, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Primary Industry, the Department of Health, the Department of Finance, the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Defence. Having attended so many committee meetings, I gained an understanding of the reasons why my colleagues could not attend some of them.

I point out also that the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen) could not be at the meeting of the Estimates committee examining the estimates for his Department as he was not well. The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Peacock) could not be there as he was overseas. In one case, we were given two hours notice of a meeting. The program was changed three times. The Government broke arrangements that it had entered into. There are 38 members on this side of the House who were given two or three days notice of those meetings. If the Government wants to make petty political points because Opposition members are not prepared to break obligations, I think that it is a poor show.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman is now arguing the matter. I call the honourable member for Wills.

Mr BRYANT:
Wills

- Mr Speaker, my personal explanation is in relation to the Estimates committees. I attended several meetings of the Estimates committees. I attended one committee meeting on behalf of my colleague, the shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations and Youth Affairs, who had briefed me adequately on the matter. It is true that at some of these committee meetings there was only one Labor member present compared with four or five Government members but, generally speaking, we found that there was about parity.

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

- Mr Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman wishes to make a personal explanation?

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– I do.

Mr SPEAKER:

– He may proceed.

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– Last year there were generally two Estimates committees–

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member will express where he was misrepresented.

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– I was misrepresented as one of a group on the grounds that I had not fulfilled my duties as a member of Parliament and had not attended meetings of Estimates committees to put the Opposition’s point of view. Last year two Estimates committees generally operated simultaneously. If four Estimates committees operate simultaneously, as happened this year, the possibility of having interested members participating is halved. It becomes even more difficult when other important committees of the Parliament are meeting at the same time. I specifically draw attention to the House of Representatives Standing Committee of Privileges. I came to Canberra on Sunday night and attended the Privileges Committee meeting early on Monday morning. In the afternoon I attended Estimates Committee A when the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Department of Administrative Services and the AttorneyGeneral’s Department were dealt with. In the period of an afternoon - grossly inadequate time - $555m worth of expenditure was to be approved. I attended the Privileges Committee again in the evening which met until nearly midnight. That meant that I was not able to attend Estimates Committee A which dealt with the Department of Defence. I could not be expected to be in two places at once. It is cheap for the Government, with a majority the size it now has–

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable gentleman is now arguing the matter. He has made his personal explanation.

Mr Les Johnson:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

- Mr Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman wishes to make a personal explanation?

Mr Les Johnson:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– Yes.

Mr SPEAKER:

– He may proceed.

Mr Les Johnson:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– My personal explanation is similar to that raised by the honourable member for Lalor (Mr Barry Jones). It concerns the misrepresentation of the Leader of the House (Mr Sinclair) in regard to Estimates committees. It is quite unfair to attribute me with indifference to Estimates committees as I attended also the House of Representatives Standing Committee of Privileges on Monday morning. Monday is not normally a parliamentary sitting day. On Monday afternoon I attended an Estimates committee–

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Corio is having an argument across the chamber with an honourable member on the

Government side. I do not know who it is but I would ask both of them to take their argument outside the chamber or remain silent.

Mr Les Johnson:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– After attending the Privileges Committee on the Monday morning I attended the Estimates committee responsible for the Department of Primary Industry and the Department of Housing and Construction. In the evening I was unable to attend the Estimates committee responsible for the Department of Transport as I was committed to attend the Privileges Committee meeting. It is totally unfair and unreasonable for the Minister to attribute any indifference to me. Two of my colleagues are overseas on parliamentary business and were–

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman has made his personal explanation.

Mr HAYDEN:
Leader of the Opposition · Oxley

Mr Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman wishes to make a personal explanation?

Mr HAYDEN:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · ALP

– Yes.

Mr SPEAKER:

– He may proceed.

Mr HAYDEN:

– When the Acting Prime Minister (Mr Anthony) returned to the House and spoke, I had the good fortune to hear his comments on the broadcasting system in my office. His comments were additional to those made in answer to a question from the honourable member for Hughes (Mr Les Johnson) and were in response to a query I directed to him. It will be recalled that the question concerned Chrysotile Corporation of Australia Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Woodsreef Mines Ltd, an asbestos firm in New South Wales. The questions asked whether the extension of export grants was appropriate for this firm in view of the fact that it appeared to be exporting crude asbestos. Let me make the point which is relevant so that the matter will be understood. I mentioned to the Acting Prime Minister that the Opposition had carried out a check on this matter and, from the information which was available, was satisfied that there was no refinement of the asbestos which was being exported by Chrysotile. I make this point as I claim to have been misrepresented by the subsequent comments of the Minister. The report of the Exports Development Grants for 1978-79 grant year points out that the Chrysotile Corporation of Australia attracted an expansion grant of $395,673. If we look at Appendix 5 of the relevant documentation on export expansion grants we will see an indicative list of ineligible goods. Page 95 of that document refers to: -asbestos, crude, washed or ground (including waste)

There is an export classification item. I would argue that there would have to be a new export classification item in the Australian exports, country by commodity, statistical bulletin issued by the Bureau to cover the proposition put forward by the Acting Prime Minister. But he did put forward that there was a change in the quality of the commodity because it was refined.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I ask the honourable gentleman where he has been misrepresented.

Mr HAYDEN:

– I have said that we have checked up and on the basis of the evidence available to us it seems that the grant has been improperly extended to the Chrysotile Corporation. But, Mr Speaker, just let me give you two quotations. That is as much as I want to give. Yesterday, the shipping manager at Barraba–

Mr Porter:

– That was a private discussion.

Mr HAYDEN:

– I can understand the honourable member’s agitation. Yesterday the shipping manager at Barraba said this–

Mr SPEAKER:

-The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. It is my practice to give great latitude to honourable members making personal explanations because it is not always easy for an honourable member to explain in one sentence how he has been misrepresented. I have listened carefully to the honourable gentleman but I also listened to the Acting Prime Minister. My understanding of what the right honourable gentleman said was that he had now been informed by the Export Development Grants Board of a series of circumstances. I do not understand how the honourable gentleman could be misrepresented by the Acting Prime Minister reporting what the Board said.

Mr HAYDEN:

– I am sorry, Mr Speaker. This is one of the unfortunate occasions when there is a series of complex matters. Until I explain them and condense them into about two sentences, it is not possible to make clear how I have been misrepresented. Let me refer to two quotations. The shipping manager at Barraba said yesterday- and this refutes what the Board is saying and therefore justifies what I have said:

We only sell as the raw fibre milled from rock.

Mr Porter:

- Mr Speaker, I take a point of order. As I recall, the question was not asked by the Leader of the Opposition, and as far as I am aware there would be no record in Hansard of the Leader of the Opposition making any mention of the matter or having taken part in the question and answer. I therefore ask how he can be misrepresented if he did not take part in the question and answer.

Mr HAYDEN:

- Mr Speaker, the point is, as I indicated to you earlier, I raised an ancillary point with your forbearance, for which I thank you, with the Acting Prime Minister and he undertook to give a response immediately. The implication of the response casts doubt on the validity, if not the integrity, of what I said. I merely want to put these quotations on the record. I cannot understand the agitation- or perhaps I can suspect the reason for it - of Government members. The shipping manager of the Chrysotile Corporation at Barraba said this:

We only sell as the raw fibre milled from rock. We merely pressurize it into bags.

Yesterday an officer of the Bureau of Mineral Resources spoke to James Hardie, manufacturer of asbestos products, and the response he was given was that that company regards raw and milled asbestos as ‘one and the same’. The implication of what I put to the Acting Prime Minister stands very firmly and, I suggest, disturbingly; namely, that on the face of the evidence available, there seems to have been a very serious breach of proper conduct.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will resume his seat.

Mr HAYDEN:

– It may not be so, but we deserve more information.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will resume his seat. I must say that the honourable gentleman has been unfair to me. I have shown him a great deal of indulgence and tolerance but he has not in any way established to me that he was misrepresented by the Acting Prime Minister.

Dr BLEWETT:
Bonython

- Mr Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Does the honourable member wish to make a personal explanation?

Dr BLEWETT:

– Yes.

Mr SPEAKER:

– He may proceed.

Dr BLEWETT:

– It is in relation to the collective slur imposed on members on this side of the House by the Leader of the House (Mr Sinclair) with reference to participation in the Estimates committees. I wish to point out only one factthat if the record of the Estimates committees for Monday, 8 September, is examined it will be found that nearly twice as many questions were asked by Labor members as by Government members, which I think shows clearly the quality of the Labor participation.

Mr SCHOLES:
Corio

- Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Does the honourable gentleman claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr SCHOLES:

– Yes, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the House (Mr Sinclair) has sought to make some cheap political capital out of denigrating members of the Opposition.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable gentleman will state where he has been misrepresented.

Mr SCHOLES:

– As one of the members of the Opposition who were involved in Estimates committees, I consider the allegation that we did not treat those Estimates committees seriously despite the Government’s lack of consideration-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Where has the honourable gentleman been misrepresented?

Mr SCHOLES:

– It has been collectively and individually asserted that members of the Opposition did not participate or did not give full support.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable gentleman is entitled to make a personal explanation concerning himself.

Mr SCHOLES:

- Mr Speaker, earlier in the day you ruled that collective allegations against members were out of order.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable gentleman has a right to make a personal explanation. Please do so.

Mr SCHOLES:

- Mr Speaker, on Thursday of last week I cancelled arrangements, as did many other members, in order to attend Estimates Committee A, which was considering proposed expenditures for the Department of Defence. Because of the indisposition of the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen), who I think everyone acknowledges had justifiable reason for requesting a deferment, we then cancelled further arrangements in order to attend Estimates Committee A on Monday at 8 p.m. and to facilitate the hearings of that Committee. I think it is unbecoming and a reflection on members of this House and on me in particular for the Leader of the House to suggest that we did not co-operate. It should also be understood quite clearly that because the Government could not meet its obligations it asked for a reduction in its numbers from seven to six.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honourable member has made his personal explanation.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

- Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Dr KLUGMAN:

– Yes, Mr Speaker, on the same topic, in regard to the same allegations by the Leader of the House (Mr Sinclair). I attended the hearings of Estimates Committee A in regard to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet at 2 o’clock on Monday afternoon. That Committee had to be adjourned for about half an hour because insufficient Government members were present to form a quorum.

Mr Hodges:

– What about Friday?

Dr KLUGMAN:

– The Government could not even provide a quorum for the estimates for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Mr Hodges:

– What about Friday?

Dr KLUGMAN:

– It was your own Prime Minister’s Department and you did not provide a quorum.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The honourable member for Prospect will resume his seat. This is not a contest in loud voices.

page 1087

BILLS RETURNED FROM THE SENATE

The following Bills were returned from the Senate without amendment:

Loan Bill 1980.

Australian Industry Development Corporation Amendment Bill 1980.

Atomic Energy Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1980.

page 1087

ASSENT TO BILLS

Assent to the following Bills reported:

Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Amendment 1980.

Immigration (Unauthorized Arrivals) Bill 1980.

Preference to Australian Goods (Commonwealth Authorities) Bill 1980.

Australia Council Amendment Bill 1980.

Museum of Australia Bill 1 980.

Delivered Meals Subsidy Amendment Bill 1 980.

National Health Amendment Bill 1980.

Nursing Homes Assistance Amendment Bill 1 980.

page 1087

MODERNISATION OF FLEET BASE AND DOCKYARD, GARDEN ISLAND

Report of Public Works Committee

Mr BUNGEY:
Canning

– In accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969,I present the report relating to the following proposed work:

Modernisation of fleet base and dockyard, Garden Island, New South Wales, Stage 1 .

Ordered that the report be printed.

page 1087

MONETARY POLICY

Discussion of Matter of Public Importance

Mr SPEAKER:

– I have received letters from the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) and the honourable member for Lilley (Mr Kevin Cairns) proposing that definite matters of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion today. As required by standing order 107 I have selected the matter which, in my opinion, is the most urgent and important, that is, that proposed by the honourable member for Gellibrand, namely:

The threat of an imminent credit squeeze and steeply rising interest rates stemming from the failure of Government economic management. 1 call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places -

Mr WILLIS:
Gellibrand

– It is an indisputable fact that together with taxation and prices Australia now has the highest interest rates in its history. For this- despite all the posturing, the promises and the excuses of the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and the Treasurer (Mr Howard)- we can blame this Government. Its abject failure to live up to its promises on interest rates is one of the strongest condemnations of the Government’s wider failure in economic management - a failure, of course, which is increasingly being recognised by the Australian people after five years of failure.

Three years ago, on the eve of the 1977 elections, the Prime Minister made reckless and irresponsible commitments to reduce interest rates. Later the Prime Minister tried to deny them and the Treasurer has since sought to excuse them. But these commitments, these pledges, were made to the Australian people and have since been dishonoured and discarded. I want to remind the House of just what the Prime Minister did say on interest rates in November and December 1977 immediately prior to the election. On 21 November, in his election policy speech, he said:

Interest rates have begun to fall, and they will keep falling.

Six days later he said:

I am confident, with my Government’s policies continuing, that falls in important interest rates could add up to a total of 2 per cent within 1 2 months.

A week later, on 2 December, the Prime Minister hardened up his forecast. During an election rally in Melbourne he predicted a 2 per cent fall in interest rates during 1978. Then he added:

This is a target that can and will be achieved.

Let me stress that the Prime Minister said that his prediction of a 2 per cent fall in interest rates ‘is a target that can and will be achieved’. The following day, in an electorate broadcast, the Prime Minister boasted of the Government’s ability to reach this target. He said:

Mr Hayden challenges the Government’s expectations of a 2 per cent reduction in interest rates over the next 12 months. Mr Hayden says it cannot be done.

As events demonstrated, the Leader of the Opposition was proved right and the Prime Minister in that statement, as in so many of his other rash and irresponsible promises, was proved utterly wrong. The Government did not achieve its promised target and at no stage in the last three years has it even looked like doing so.

A year after these promises were made the interest rate on 13-week Treasury notes had not changed at all while the rate on 10-year Commonwealth bonds was down only 0.7 per cent. So far as home loans were concerned, the bank lending rate had fallen even less, by 0.5 per cent- and only after a great deal of bullying and browbeating of the banks by the Government. These marginal falls were the closest the Prime Minister ever got to keeping to the 1 977 election promise.

Interest rates on government securities are now 2i per cent higher than when the Prime Minister promised to make them 2 per cent lower. I emphasise that they are now 21 per cent higher than they were at the end of 1 977 when this rash promise of a 2 per cent reduction was made by the Prime Minister. Instead of falling by 2 per cent, interest rates on bank housing loans are at least 0.75 per cent higher than they were in December 1977. In reality there was never any prospect of achieving those reductions, even with enormous Government pressure on the banks to manipulate the market. Now, the Government is desperately trying to fend off an explosion in interest rates before another election. I repeat: Interest rates have not been reduced; they have been forced upwards. As a direct result of this Government’s erratic policies they are under severe pressure to go even higher.

These are the same discredited policies this Government has pursued for five years. Interest rates have been forced up by the Government’s defiance of the realities of our own markets and the influence of the rest of the world. They have risen because the Government has failed dismally to create the conditions in which they could move in any other direction. The Government has consistently sought to maintain excessively tight monetary policies. It has consistently failed to meet its own targets. Indeed, in 1978-79 its target was 6 per cent to 8 per cent. In fact, the result was an 1 1 .8 per cent increase in M3. In 1979-80 the target was 10 per cent and the actual increase in M3 was 12.9 per cent. So in both cases it failed abysmally to reach its own targets. That is just as well because as far as it has gone this Government has caused enormous cost and hardship to hundreds of thousands of Australian home buyers and business people.

The Government has not succeeded in making any significant reduction in inflation from which lower interest rates were supposed to follow automatically. It has maintained a state of recession or stagnation in the economy while it has pushed up inflation through such things as higher health costs and a doubling of petrol prices. These two policies alone have added about 2i per cent to prices in the past year, thus creating one of the strongest influences for higher interest rates.

Let me remind the House that the import parity pricing of Australian produced crude oil has added in the last financial year - that is, 1979-80- just over one per cent to the consumer price index. If one adds to that the two-thirds of the direct effect which the Government said in the national wage case must be allowed for indirect effects on the consumer price index from increased petrol prices - that is, through increased transport and freight costs - we get a 1 .75 per cent increase in the consumer price index last year from the Government’s oil pricing policy for Australian produced crude oil. If we add to that the 0.5 per cent increase in the consumer price index from the abolition of the 40 per cent subsidy for medical services below $20, we get from the Government’s own actions an increase of 2i per cent in the consumer price index in 1979-80. This is a policy of beating inflation by increasing prices.

Short term movements in interest rates may well reflect seasonal or some other factors. But there can be no doubt at all that long term rates are tied to expectations of inflation. As this Government’s policies accelerate inflation, so expectations of further inflation and higher interest rates are created. That is the situation we face at present. In other words, the best informed opinions at present agree with the Opposition that the policies of this Government can lead only to higher inflation and higher interest rates. At the same time the Government’s excessive attitude on monetary policy has been directly responsible for much of the growth in small business bankruptcies and the stagnation in the home building industry over the past five-year period.

How does the Treasurer expect his crazy sums to work? Last year the nominal growth in gross domestic product was about 14 per cent. The total borrowing requirement for the public sector was $4.5 billion and the money supply was around 1 3 per cent. This year the forecast for nominal growth is about the same as it was last year - that is, 14 per cent, with around 1 1 per cent for inflation and 3 per cent for real growth. The borrowing requirement is only slightly reduced at $4.4 billion compared with $4.5 billion last year. Yet the Government pretends it can achieve this objective with a money supply growth of only 10 per cent. It simply cannot add up. In fact, it is ignoring its stated targets for money supply growth at the moment because it is afraid of a leap in interest rates before the elections. It is doing a repeat of the McMahon Government’s unprincipled performance in 1971-72 when it allowed the growth in the money supply to rise from 9 per cent in the year to December 1971 to 20 per cent in the year to December 1972. Of course, in the last six months of 1 972 the money supply grew at an annual rate of 34 per cent. That irresponsible action produced inflationary consequences that nobody could avoid.

If the Government was serious about reaching its own target of around 10 per cent growth in money supply this year it would have to take action now. Obviously, it is not. Yet this is the period of the year when liquidity should be easiest. In the first half of next year, taxpayers will find the going much tougher. Company and provisional tax payments will be $1.5 billion higher than those of last year, and that must inevitably intensify the usual seasonal tightness in liquidity at that time of the year. The Government is pretending to the Australian people that all is well, that there is no need for action. But the markets know better. They simply do not believe the Government.

Let us look at the signs. Subscriptions to the Australian savings bond have sunk to a level that represents a vote of no confidence in the Government’s performance. People are getting out of savings bonds. There were net redemptions of about $52m in the first two months of this financial year, despite all the efforts of Leonard Teale and the Treasury’s extraordinary advertising budget and a rise of one per cent in the rate on such bonds during this calendar year, with 0.5 per cent of that rise occurring in July. Despite all that, redemptions have exceeded subscriptions in July and August. In the corresponding months of last year, net subscriptions totalled $125m.

There are other clear warnings. Tap stock subscriptions have fallen back from more than $100m a week a month ago to about $15m in the last week for which figures are available. Yet another indicator is that bank lending is still on the rise. In the 12 months to June it increased by 16.7 per cent; in the 12 months to July the increase was 17.2 per cent. There is no sign of it turning around. The money market is nervous and apprehensive- and no wonder. The smart money is getting out of Government bonds because it knows that another rise in interest rates is imminent. No less an authority than a leading merchant banking company, Hill Samuel, confirmed that view publicly in its September report on banking and capital markets. Hill Samuel says this:

During the last few weeks, three official documents have been released, the implications of which indicate that during 1980-81 there will be a squeeze on the availability of credit and an increase in interest rates across the board.

That is the Hill Samuel view and the money market view. The three documents referred to were the Budget, the annual report of the Reserve Bank of Australia and the report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Economic Strategy tabled in this House by the Treasurer in defence of himself. I remind the House that that Committee said that monetary policy in 1980-81 should maintain a significantly tighter stance than it did over the course of 1 979-80. It also said: lt will also be desirable for interest rates on bank lending to be allowed to rise sufficiently to discourage excessive demands for advances.

So quite clearly the interdepartmental committee of the Government’s chief economic advisers was saying that interest rates must be allowed to go up in 1980-81. The Reserve Bank, of course, has also publicly recommended more flexibility in interest rates during 1980-81. Yet if capital inflow occurs this year at the level predicted by the Government, the achievement of its money growth targets will be even more difficult. Ministers insist, rather desperately, that Australia is about to experience an investment boom. Officials, as well as public commentators, have recognised that these claims are exaggerated. For example, in the report of the interdepartmental committee on economic strategy, the Government’s principal economic advisers note that the surveys quoted by more enthusiastic ministers:

May over-estimate the extent of a likely build-up in investment.

Later, the report notes even more damningly that:

Neither precise comparisons with past trends nor confident pictures of the future are practicable.

However, despite these sorts of comments the Government persists in claiming that foreign investment will increase this fiscal year. If it does, it will constitute an increased part of monetary growth. Therefore, to achieve the excessively low money growth target of the Budget other areas of monetary growth would (ave to be restricted even further. In other words, there would have to be an even tighter squeeze on credit. The unwillingness of the Treasurer to say anything about interest rates in the Budget is clear evidence of the Government’s severe embarrassment on this issue. The Treasurer has been pressed, both inside the House and outside, to clarify the Government’s view on where it sees interest rates heading. On each and every occasion he has evaded and obfuscated, and doubtless will do so again today.

The Government, quite simply, wants to forget all about interest rates - and its glowing promises of earlier years - on the eve of another election. Its entire strategy is one of keeping the lid on the subject until, it hopes, it can scramble through a difficult election campaign. We on this side of the House do not intend to be so accommodating to the uncomfortable members opposite. The Government knows that its policies are quite deliberately aggravating high interest rates. We intend to make sure in the weeks ahead that the Australian people understand exactly what these policies threaten for tens of thousands of home buyers throughout the country.

The trading banks are quite outspoken on this. The Commercial Banking Co. of Sydney Ltd recently proposed that overdraft rates be lifted by 2 per cent while the Bank of New South Wales argued that all officially controlled interest rates should be increased. I repeat that for this we can blame the Government’s misguided policies. This Government alone is responsible for economic conditions which are pushing up interest rates to new record levels. What is needed is a change of government and change of policy. There has to be a more positive approach to economic management instead of the persistent squeeze this Government has applied for the last five years. Screwing down the economy even tighter, as the latest Budget does, can only aggravate interest rates. Persisting with a petrol pricing policy and a health insurance system that inexorably and repeatedly add to the consumer price index can only intensify inflation.

There must be some expansion of the economy, some careful stimulation by some form of reduced taxation and some positive move toward improved living standards and anti-inflationary measures by cheaper petrol and cheaper family health insurance. Monetary policy has to be changed to relate more closely the rate of growth of money supply to the rate of growth of national income to ensure that home buyers and small businesses have greater access to credit without the rationing device of high interest rates. These are measures that this Government has ignored.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr HOWARD:
Treasurer · Bennelong · LP

– The Government welcomes this opportunity to debate the differing approaches to monetary policy of the Opposition and the Government. I suppose the most amazing thing about the contribution of the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) is that he professes to be concerned about what he chooses to describe as an imminent credit squeeze but then spends most of his speech expressing an opinion as to whether the Government’s own monetary target as set out in the Budget is going to be achieved. Let me make two things very clear at the outset of my remarks. Firstly, I am not going to make quantitive predictions about the future level of interest rates. The honourable member for Gellibrand and his colleagues, having spent the last three years criticising the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and other members of the Government for having made quantitive predictions about the level of interest rates, now find it convenient for their own political purposes to criticise me for not being prepared to make such predictions. The things that really matter about interest rates are the policies that governments pursue and which alternative governments espouse which have an effect on the level of interest rates.

This debate essentially is about interest rates and the honourable member for Gellibrand made that very clear. As he knows and as every member of this House knows, the interest rate is the price that one pays for money. Ultimately, the level of interest rates will be governed by supply and demand for money in the community. The only way in which governments, through their own policy actions, can directly affect the level of interest rates in the long term is the way in which they increase or decrease their own demand for money through their own activities. That leads us to one inescapable conclusion which is that the party that believes in big government is a party of high interest rates. It cannot be anything else because if it believes in spending more it has to do one of three things. Firstly, taxation has to be increased to pay for that additional spending; secondly, it has to sell more government securities and thus force up interest rates to cover the difference between what is spent and what is raised through taxation; or thirdly, it has to print money. It has to take its pick.

The Labor Party would have us believe that there is a fourth alternative by which somehow or other government can spend more money without increasing taxation, can reduce interest rates or keep them at the present level and not have to print money. That is cloud cuckoo land because that cannot be done. The experience of every Western country that has tried to do it in the 1970s demonstrates very clearly that it simply cannot be done. For the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Hayden) and the honourable member for Gellibrand or anybody else in the Opposition to pretend that it can be done is quite wrong. The Opposition has criticised every Budget of this Government as being too contractionary.

Dr Cass:

– Hear, hear!

Mr HOWARD:

– That criticism is endorsed by my friend the honourable member for Maribyrnong. When he says that the Budget is too contractionary he is saying that the Government should have spent more money. If one is to spend more money one has to get it from somewhere. That is not a proposition that escapes the attention even of people opposite because there are some in the Opposition ranks who are prepared in different moments - and non-electoral moments - to accept the proposition that there is a limit on what governments and alternative governments can offer the community. For Labor Party members to come into this House and say that it is a party that stands for lower interest rates is to defy all reality, all logic, and to deny their own promises because the Labor Party has made it very clear that it will add at least $2,000m on an annual basis to expenditure if Mr Hayden becomes the Prime Minister after the next election. A Hayden Labor Government would spend a great deal more. It could only cover that additional expenditure by a combination of the three things I mentioned, or alternatively, choosing one of them. The first thing that has to be said about this debate is that if any party on the Australian political scene is serious about reducing pressures in the money market on interest rates it cannot expect to be taken seriously if it advocates higher government spending and larger government deficits. What this Government has done through the reduction of about $ 1,400m it achieved in last year’s deficit was to make it possible for interest rates in Australia significantly to escape - not entirely - the world wide trend to higher interest rates that occurred throughout the financial year of 1979-80.

Honourable members opposite can laugh and deny that for as long as they choose but the facts are there. Despite the enormous increase that occurred in interest rates in the United States and in other industrialised countries last year that was not anywhere near fully reflected in Australia. If it had not been for the low deficit policies of this Government interest rates would have gone up. If one analyses what has been said by the Opposition one is left with that conclusion. Let it be quite clear that any party that comes into this House and advocates bigger government is advocating one of three things. It is advocating higher interest rates, higher taxation, or higher inflation. If we spend more money and do not cover it through borrowings or taxation, we have to print money, and that is the most inflationary thing any government can do.

Mr Howe:

– You have done all three.

Mr HOWARD:

– It is no wonder the honourable member for Batman and the honourable member for Gellibrand get agitated and start interjecting on that point. They do not like the truth of their own policies. The truth of their policies is that if they adhere to the expenditure commitments they have made, in the event of the election of a Hayden government at the next election they will condemn the Australian economy to one of those three outcomes, or a combination of those three outcomes. There can be no escaping that fact. There is no fourth alternative, and if there were a fourth alternative I think the Australian people would like to hear it from the honourable member for Gellibrand or the Leader of the Opposition. They will be given plenty of opportunity over the next few months to give that explanation.

In the course of his remarks the honourable member for Gellibrand, in attempting to beat up and create in the Australian community a totally unjustified and totally mischievous fear of a credit squeeze, said quite a number of things. The first thing that has to be said about the remarks of the honourable member for Gellibrand, and indeed about the performance of this Government in monetary management, is that we should look at the record over the past five years.

Mr Willis:

– What is the money market doing?

Mr HOWARD:

– The honourable member for Gellibrand asks by way of interjection: ‘What about the money markets? What do they say?’ One thing the money markets say is that during the past five years management by the authorities of monetary matters and liquidity matters has given to the Australian business community a great deal more predictability and a great deal more certainty than it experienced in the peaks and troughs of monetary management in the years immediately before they took over.

Mr Willis:

– Where do they say that?

Mr HOWARD:

– The honourable member for Gellibrand knows as well as any member on this side of the House that the Reserve Bank of

Australia has been extremely skilful in the management of liquidity matters in the Australian economy over the past five years and deserves every credit for it. For the honourable member for Gellibrand to suggest otherwise is to suggest something that is completely incorrect. The record of this Government in monetary management is one of ensuring that we achieve an appropriate balance between having the monetary system sufficiently firm but at the same time not allowing any excessive growth in monetary aggregates. It is a very delicate balance and I believe that, by and large, it has been very effectively achieved over the last five years. That is very much to the credit of those in the community who were responsible for day to day management during that period.

Time and time again, as one listened to the remarks of the honourable member for Gellibrand, one was left with the impression that he saw the solution to the problem in the Government allowing the money supply to blow out. Time and time again he said that the money supply targets of the Government were too tight, that it was not allowing for sufficient growth in the Australian economy, despite the fact that the latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development survey suggests that growth in prospect in the Australian economy in 1980-81 is significantly above the average of almost zero in the OECD area generally. The solution of the honourable member for Gellibrand, of course, is to go back to the printing press. Already he has given a clue that, as far as he is concerned, if he is the Treasurer in a Hayden Labor government he will pick No. 3 of those alternatives. He will not want to increase taxation; he will not want to sell securities to the public; he will choose path No. 3. He will print more money. Of course, that is the most inflationary of all methods. For him to suggest that the Labor Party is with credit and the Government is without credit so far as inflation is concerned, is a proposition that I do not believe will receive very much currency in the Australian community in the weeks immediately ahead.

For any government, the management of the money supply is a task that involves achieving a fine balance between those two objectives I indicated. It is necessary to conduct monetary policy in a manner which allows sufficient credit and liquidity facilities for private business activity, and from time to time those requirements will change. There is no doubt in the world that all the available evidence suggests that, given the right economic policies, we will see a very significant expansion of private business investment in the years immediately ahead. The best thing governments can do, with that sort of prospect ahead, is not to increase the call they make on the resources of the community but to reduce it. Governments ought to be reducing the money they borrow out of the system, not increasing it. Governments ought to be getting out of the way and allowing room for the private sector to borrow funds and to expand.

All the statistics indicate - I am not just talking about large development projects, I am also talking about the immediate investment plans of small and medium sized business in Australia - that the level of private fixed investment that will occur in the Australian economy in the next year or two will be significantly greater than it has been over the past two or three years. What that means, of course, is that there will be increased competition for funds available for lending. In those circumstances, the clear obligation of governments, if they believe in private sector activity, if they believe that room should be available for the private sector, is to get out of the way, reduce their borrowing requirements, and allow room for the private sector. The way in which the Commonwealth Government can do that is to reduce its Budget deficit and to control effectively its spending, not to commit itself to $2,000m more spending on an annual basis. It has to recognise that if governments increase their spending they have only one of three alternatives available, and I remind the honourable member for Gellibrand of those alternatives. Governments can either increase taxation to pay for that additional spending, they can sell more government paper, which means higher interest rates, or alternatively they can simply resort to that irresponsible inflationary device of printing more money, which we found to our very great cost in the early years of the 1 970s was disastrous in terms of expectations, disastrous in terms of private and business economic activity, and disastrous in terms of the international competitiveness of the Australian economy.

If the Opposition is interested in the cause of lower interest rates it will repudiate its economic policy and its commitment to high expenditure. Every economist, every person of common sense who understands what governments need to take out of the resources of the community to cover their spending requirements, knows very well that if governments run high deficits they will inevitably, unless they adopt a totally irresponsible and inflationary approach, cause higher interest rates. For the Opposition to come into this House, as it has done today, and wring its hands over the question of interest rates is to defy the logic of its protestations on economic policy.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar:
WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

Order! The honourable gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr HURFORD:
Adelaide

– The Government’s economic policies are totally unsuccessful, and the Treasurer (Mr Howard) is responsible for some of the worst economic policies this country has suffered for many years. Not only are the Treasurer’s claims about his policies false but so also are his claims about the Opposition’s policies. His claims are simplistic. His views are misguided. As a result of his views and the policies his Government is perpetrating at the present time, Australians are suffering badly. But what is worse, as soon as the Government gets this election out of the way, if unhappily it is reelected to government this country will be in for a dose of even worse policies, even tighter monetary policies, and even higher interest rates. I will show that that is so not only by making assertions but also by quoting some made by other people. I refute the claim of the Treasurer that more expansionary policies will lead to increased interest rates. I refute his simplistic views that lower deficits bring about a Utopia which itself will lead to lower interest rates and an expanding economy.

It is, of course, the total public sector borrowing requirement that is important, as is the rate of inflation and the rate of taxation in this country. The Australian Labor Party recognises this and has a package of policies to devote to these complex problems. The fact is that under this Fraser Government, under the stewardship of Treasurer Howard who has just spoken in this Parliament, we have the highest interest rates that we have had for many years as well as increasing inflation. In addition, all of this is happening at a time when the deficit is being reduced. The whole of his rationale, that if we bring about a reduction in the deficit everything in the garden will be lovely, is total nonsense. I repeat: This Government is a most unsuccessful one and it is an inescapable fact that now, under this Government and under this Treasurer’s stewardship, we have the highest rate of inflation and, indeed, the highest rate of unemployment. It is worth saying again–

Mr Howard:

– You are an honest man. Will you correct that?

Mr HURFORD:

– Under this Government we have the highest rate of unemployment and an increasing rate of inflation. I correct myself if I did not say that initially because there are, of course, other factors that come into play. I correct myself by saying that there is an increasing rate of inflation. There are more signs of the Fraser Government’s mismanagement of our economy becoming evident every day. Today there is the news that the Australian Guarantee Corporation Ltd is raising its top debenture rate of interest to 1 2.5 per cent. That is another example of higher interest rates, but we could go back over the business pages of our newspapers day by day to find bad news like that which is a result of the economic policies of this unsuccessful government. Never before have we seen so much money raising at such unprecedented rates of interest.

Yesterday there was the news in our morning newspapers of the number of bankruptcies taking place. Of course, that is the effect of high interest rates on the small business community of this country. Not only are home buyers hit badly but also small businesses which are responsible for so much of the economic activity of this nation are hit. Bankruptcies are up to 4,979, an increase of 29.1 per cent on the figure of 3,857 for the previous year.

I wish now to outline another sad fact, which I hope will make tomorrow’s news because the people deserve to know the bad facts about this unsuccessful government. Due to the hardships caused by the present credit squeeze and the steeply rising interest rates’, the very words used in the text of this matter of public importance put before the House by the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) - due in other words to the Fraser Government’s mismanagement of our economy- Victoria has become the bankruptcy capital of Australia. We can look at worsening figures for every State, but I wish to focus on Victoria because Victorians have suffered 1,231 bankruptcies in 1979-80. That is an increase of 61.1 per cent on the 1978-79 figure of 764 bankruptcies. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a table setting out the number of bankruptcies in Australia and in Victoria from 1975-76- the last year affected by the Whitlam Government policies - to the past financial year, 1979-80, when bankruptcies have been affected by the misguided policies of the Fraser Government.

Leave granted.

The table read as follows -

Mr HURFORD:

– I thank the House. These hard facts are the result of wrong policies. This is a government which is seeking salvation through stagnation. It is a government which believes it must focus only on inflation, and yet it has been significantly unsuccessful in coping with just that. One of the fundamental errors made by the Government in its pursuit of lower inflation is to assume that demand pressures are a major cause. This fatal assumption has led the Government towards a policy which actually increases rather than decreases inflation.

In budgetary policy, the maniacal quest for a Budget surplus has led the Government towards a tragically high level of taxation. The enormous growth in taxes has had a strong impact on inflation levels, both in a direct sense in the case of petroleum taxes and in the indirect sense in the case of higher levels of income taxation. As I said earlier, it is a government of the highest level of taxation, a government of the highest rate of unemployment. Of course, the high level of taxation is having an effect on that third factor, an increasing level of inflation which is occurring right now. In regard to monetary policy, talked about at great length and with great wisdom by the honourable member for Gellibrand, the assumption that demand must be contained has led to higher interest rates associated with tight monetary growth targets. I must mention, because I think I neglected to do so earlier, that the Labor

Party’s package of policies does include a realistic level of increase in the rate of money supply. We are not suggesting that the deficit can be limitless. We have in mind an increasing, but modest, rate of deficit. At the same time, we have a very clear policy under which we intend to have a realistic rate of growth in the money supply, not the present stringent rate which is causing such hardship to those who are affected by the increase in interest rates brought about by this Government.

The other great factor of our policy is that we will reduce taxation. We will bring down taxation from the high levels of this Government. It is the highest tax government in the history of this nation. It can be seen clearly that attempts to restrict demand pressures are creating new cost pressures in the Australian economy. Cost pressure is the main cause of inflation in the current economic situation. The high taxes are one of the causes of those cost pressures. I venture to suggest that cost pressures have been the main cause of inflation since about 1974. Prior to that time demand pressures were significant, and it is unfortunate that the Government appears to have locked itself into an ideology of restrictionism based on its rhetoric during its years in opposition. I suggest that the Treasurer and the other exponents of this misguided policy get away from their rhetoric and look at the facts about the economy right now. I am not pretending that the package one has to choose is easy, but what I can say unequivocally is that the package that he and his colleagues have chosen over the last five years has been a singularly unsuccessful one. So we have reached the situation today when, I repeat, we have not only inflation increasing but also the highest level of unemployment and the highest level of taxation. The sort of effects that that is having on the small business community in particular is disastrous because that sector has only the trading banks to go to for its working capital. Yet, these stringent monetary policies are resulting in the trading banks not being able to increase the working capital that small business requires. It is no wonder that spokesmen of the small business community are saying now that for them Labor policies are far preferable to Liberal policies. I wish to quote Mr Harrower of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry who stated:

The Labor Party appears more sensitive to the needs of small business than the Federal Liberal Government.

The Liberals seem more concerned with the needs of multinationals and industrial giants.

It is no wonder he said that. I wish that I had more time to quote other spokesmen from the small business community in order to make my case.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jarman)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr SAINSBURY:
Monaro · Eden

– All I can say is that if Mr Harrower leads his followers into voting for the Australian Labor Party and if, by that method, the Australian Labor Party happens to get into power they will regret it because they will end up broke. Fancy hearing from the honourable member for Adelaide (Mr Hurford) that Labor will reduce taxation, after being given a long list of the additional forms of taxation that the Labor Party would impose after the next election if it came to power. Indeed both Opposition speakers on this matter have been completely confused. Honourable members on this side of the House wonder whether the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) wants more money or less money. For most of his speech he was talking about less money but then said he wanted more money. I am not quite sure what he wants.

I am certainly not sure what the honourable member for Adelaide wants. I do not know whether he wants more money so that he can increase inflation or less money so that he can put up interest rates. The Opposition seems to have an interest in interest rates. As a responsible party, I suppose it should. I suppose also that it is not bad to talk about interest rates in a lead-up to an election. People get scared about these things. People can be misled. People can be made to think that if they have a government that blows out the deficit and spends money as if it is going out of fashion - a government that introduces brand new forms of taxation that will affect almost everyone in the economy - that interest rates might stay at reasonable levels. But history does not show that to be the case, does it? If we look at other economies that have irresponsible policies, such as Australia had between 1972 and 1975, we find that interest rates do blow out. Interest rates, of course, are an important factor in the management of the economy.

The Opposition does not seem to understand the correlation between excess liquidity and inflation, as the Treasurer (Mr Howard) said a few minutes ago. If the Opposition is talking about excess liquidity through the printing of money - that appears to be the way it is heading - of course it is asking for inflation. If it is asking for inflation it is asking for great deprivation to those small businessmen who the Opposition have suddenly discovered exist in Australia.

Does the Opposition want a big deficit? Yes. It keeps saying that. Does it want higher interest rates? Yes, of course it does. Does it want high taxes? No. It said today that it wants to reduce taxes. Of course, that is not what the Opposition has been saying for weeks. What we should be talking about perhaps is the subject of the debate, that is, the difficult question of the money supply. It is a difficult question because a government that can control the money supply perfectly is a magical government. It is very difficult to walk the tightrope between too much, which will create excess liquidity and inflationary pressures, and too little, which will squeeze to some extent those productive forces in the economy that it is required to invest so that more jobs can be provided and more profits can be made in the future. I was interested to hear a document prepared by Hill Samuel Australia Ltd quoted by the Opposition. In part, it stated:

During the last few weeks three official documents have been released, the implications of which indicate that during 1980-81 there will be a squeeze on the availability of credit and an increase in interest rates across the board.

Maybe what Hill Samuel has said is a matter of concern. Pressures inevitably build up in an economy where we have a great inflow of funds, both capital and other - pressures that, need skilful management. Of course, what the honourable member for Gellibrand did not do was to finish the quotation from the Hill Samuel document, which goes on to state:

On the plus side economic growth should be relatively strong during this period and the Australian Dollar should continue to strengthen.

Later I will refer to another passage from the same document that might go towards answering the statement of the honourable member for Adelaide, who said that the economy was in a shambles. I come back to the basic problem. The control of the money supply is difficult. That is one of the reasons the Government is trying to look at ways and means of improving the mechanisms within the economy for controlling the money supply. It has set up the Committee of Inquiry into the Australian Financial System, the Campbell inquiry- an inquiry which recognises the fact that in our modern economy the Government does not have all the answers. Over the last few years we have had credit squeezes that have been brought about after governments perhaps have let the money supply blow out far too much.

I do not think that the present Government needs to worry about the way in which it has handled the money supply as distinct from the way in which the Labor Government allowed the money supply to blow out heavily during its latter period in office. I remind the House that it is a well established fact of economics- a fact based on statistics - that whenever there is a blow-out of the money supply, excess liquidity, there is an increase in inflation after some lag which is usually predictable. Those statistics are available over many years. I think it has taken us a long time to discover some qf these facts. We know about them now. Unfortunately the Opposition has no comprehension of them.

The Opposition has no comprehension of what it is like to be able to settle down and say to the people of Australia: ‘We are not going to spend any more money on such and such. We are going to be tight because it is in our interests as Australians.’ The Opposition has no concept of the sound economic planning that is so necessary. Perhaps I should not have used the word ‘planning’, perhaps I should have said ‘management’ because the word ‘planning’ in the Opposition’s sense is a fearful word. We have been told about the economic planning departments that the Opposition is proposing to establish should it come into power. One wonders what that means. One wonders whether the Opposition is talking about the good old five-year plans that exist in some of the brother countries of the Labor Party.

The present Government recognises most of the problems. Already in its term of office, regardless of what Campbell might say in pointing the direction in which we are pointing, this Government has tried to fill some of the gaps. It has tried to fill some of the liquidity gaps that perhaps from time to time squeeze people such as small businessmen and farmers. Unfortunately the Government is still not allowing interest rates to find their own levels sufficiently. I respect the view of the Treasurer, who said that it would be best to wait until the Campbell inquiry reports because we should then have an overall view of the monetary situation.

What I really want to say is that the present Government has the capacity for sound economic management. That capacity has been borne out very plainly in the indicators of the past four years - indicators that in some instances have been very slow to turn around but indicators which across the board have been far more favourable after a period of far sounder economic management. Today the Opposition did not offer any alternatives. The Opposition speakers in this debate could not have offered any alternatives because they are confused. They do not know whether they want the Government to keep to its band of money supply increase this year and they do not know whether they want the money supply to blow out or to contract. I wish that the Opposition did know because then the Australian people could have an alternative to vote for. Unfortunately the people of Australia will not have an alternative because what the Opposition is saying is just not positive. It is a can of worms; it is very difficult to find meaning in it. It is the spirit of Dr Cairns returning.

I should like to refer again to the Hill Samuel document that the honourable member for Gellibrand tried to use against the present Government. I will quote what is said in this document about the Australian economy. I am not being selective. I will quote a full paragraph. The document states:

Due to our comparatively lower rate of inflation our manufacturing sector has successfully expanded into new overseas markets with obvious benefits for local employment opportunities. To give up the fight against inflation to achieve a temporary stimulus to the economy-

I hope the Opposition is listening-

Mr Howard:

– What do you mean by a ‘temporary stimulus’?

Mr SAINSBURY:

– That is what the Opposition is always saying about the economy. The document continues: would in the very short term create some jobs but within 2 years, when the facts of economic life had to be faced, would see a more serious and more permanent increase in unemployment levels.

If the Government does achieve its aims and objectives for 1980-81 and if Australia can hold back the inflationary pressures then the outlook for the mid- 1 980s is encouraging.

The outlook for the mid-1980s is encouraging if this Government’s sound economic policies are allowed to continue and this Government is allowed to remain in power. We are very confident that the Australian people have the brains to ensure that.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jarman)Order! The discussion is now concluded.

page 1097

AIR NAVIGATION (CHARGES) AMENDMENT BILL 1980

Bill presented by Mr Hunt, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr HUNT:
Minister for Transport · Gwydir · NCP/NP

– I move:

This Bill is a machinery Bill to amend the Air Navigation (Charges) Act 1952, which imposes charges on aircraft for use of aerodromes, airways facilities, meteorological services, and search and rescue services provided, operated and maintained by the Commonwealth. The purpose of the Bill is:

  1. to increase the rate of air navigation charges for the domestic trunk airline sector by 15 per cent as from 1 December 1980;
  2. to include in the Act zone factors for international operations to and from
  3. Norfolk Island;

    1. Hobart; and
    2. Townsville;
  4. to include in the Act route factors for flights over Antarctica which commence and end at the same place in Australia; and
  5. to delete from the Act some routes which the domestic airlines no longer operate and to include some new routes.

Honourable members will be aware that in 1961 the then Government announced a policy of full recovery of costs attributable to the aviation industry for the provision and maintenance of the aviation infrastructure. All governments since that time have subscribed to this policy. This policy objective was first achieved in the international sector of the industry in 1975-76. Since that time the international sector has continued to be over recovered. In the 1 979-80 Budget it was announced that 100 per cent recovery was to be achieved in the domestic trunk sector by 1981-82. However, it has now been decided to reach that target in 1980-81.

In accordance with this decision, the Bill makes provision for a15 per cent increase in the rate of air navigation charges for the domestic trunk airline sector from 1 December1980. Such an increase will mean that this sector of the industry will achieve100 per cent recovery in 1980-81 on the basis of the attributable costs allocated to it under revised allocation principles. I should add that these principles have still to be agreed by Government. This proposed increase is expected to have a minimal effect on fares. At present, air navigation charges represent about 5 per cent of the airlines’ total costs. Thus the increase in air navigation charges of 15 per cent could be expected to increase the airline’s cost by only less than 1 per cent.

Honourable members will recall, however, that the airlines agreements limit the rate of increase in air navigation charges for the two major airlines to 10 per cent in any 12-month period. As in the past two years, the airlines have been asked to waive their rights under the airlines agreement in respect of the limitation placed on such increases. The question of this limitation, of course, is one of the matters which are the subject of negotiation between the Commonwealth and the airlines in respect of a new airlines agreement. No increase is proposed at this stage in the rate of air navigation charges for the international airlines, rural airlines and general aviation sectors. The position for the rural airline and general aviation sectors will be reviewed when the result of the general aviation study is considered by the Government.

I am unable to give honourable members details of the overall cost recovery results for 1979-80. However, honourable members will be interested in the cost recovery position in 1978-79, that is, the latest year’s figures available, based on the revised allocation principles. In respect of international operations there was an over recovery of some $1 1.4m at a recovery rate of 127.7 per cent; for the domestic trunk sector there was a deficit of $6.2m at a recovery rate of 92 per cent; for the regional airlines the deficit was $20.8m at a recovery rate of 30.2 per cent and for general aviation, including commuters, the deficit was $82. 7m at 14.5 per cent. The overall recovery rate was 59.9 per cent giving an overall deficit of $98. 3m.

Whilst the Government has decided not to vary the rate of charges for the international sector in 1 980-8 1 , it has agreed that some action should be taken in respect of the over recoveries. Accordingly, it is proposed that any over recovery in the international sector in 1980-81 will be credited to the cost recovery program and applied to the development of the aviation infrastructure. The details of this proposal have still to be decided. To achieve the increase in air navigation charges for the domestic trunk sector, it has been necessary to divide the Table of Flights for Flights Between Certain Places in Australia in Schedule 1 of the Act into two parts:

  1. the first part nominates routes applicable to regional airline sector operations; and
  2. the second part nominates routes applicable to domestic trunk sector operations.

In addition the opportunity has been taken to make some administrative changes to the Table to take account of changed circumstances. Some routes have been added to the Table to take account of new routes being operated by the domestic airlines and some routes have been deleted. The deletions are in respect of operations to and from Mangalore, which was previously an alternative and training airport for the domestic airlines. This airport is now used mainly for general aviation operations.

Honourable members will also note that a route factor has been included for flights commencing and ending in Australia and which overfly Antarctica. At present these flights attract a route factor of one which, in my view, does not reflect the use they make of the infrastructure. Additional zone factors have been included into the proposed Part III of the Table of Flights in Schedule 1. These factors make allowance for the Government’s decision to permit international operations to and from Hobart and Townsville. Further, Norfolk Island at present attracts a charge of eight times the unit charge because a zone factor has not been specified for the international services to the island. The Bill rectifies this deficiency. I commend the Bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Dr Klugman) adjourned.

page 1098

CONSTRUCTION OF NEW HANGAR COMPLEX, HMAS ALBATROSS

Approval of Work: Public Works Committee Act

Mr GROOM:
Minister for Housing and Construction · Braddon · LP

– I move:

The proposal is for the provision of permanent working accommodation at the HMAS Albatross Naval Air Station and comprises a new hangar, a technical services workshop, a new administration building, storage facilities and all necessary engineering services. When completed the facilities will cater for the maintenance and administration of two squadrons and for the administration only of two other squadrons. The estimated cost of the proposal examined by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works was $5. 6m at May 1980 prices. The Committee has recommended construction of the work in the reference and, if the House agrees to support this motion, detailed planning and construction can proceed in the normal manner.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

– The Opposition supports the proposal as it comes from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 1098

CONSTRUCTION OF AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE COMPLEX AND ACCESS PAVEMENTS, RAAF BASE, DARWIN

Approval of Work: Public Works Committee Act

Mr GROOM:
Minister for Housing and Construction · Braddon · LP

– I move:

This proposal is for the construction of a maintenance complex to allow full undercover servicing of aircraft up to Caribou size and nose-in servicing of larger aircraft. Aprons and taxi-ways will be provided to suit servicing requirements and access to runways. The works will comprise a new hangar, a servicing support workshop, and a building for flammable stores. There will also be apron and taxi-way pavement works and the relocation of demountable buildings from the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh in South Australia. The facilities will provide for the maintenance of RAAF aircraft stationed at or visiting Darwin and will contribute to RAAF operations, which are, of course, an integral part of Australia’s northern defence system.

The Public Works Committee, in reporting favourably on this proposal, asked in the second recommendation of its report that the departments of Defence and Transport consult with the Government of the Northern Territory as soon as possible on the long term proposals for relocation of civil aviation operations at the Darwin airport. I indicate to the House that such consultations with the Northern Territory Government on this issue commenced during 1979. Those consultations are continuing. I also draw the attention of honourable member’s to a joint statement on this matter which was issued recently by my colleagues the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen) and the Minister for Transport (Mr Hunt). They indicated in that statement that the Commonwealth Government would continue to maintain close contact with the Northern Territory Government during planning of the new civil aviation complex and that environmental issues and measures to keep aircraft noise and road traffic problems to a minimum would receive close attention. The estimated cost of the proposal examined by the Committee was $4.5m at May 1980 prices. I am pleased to note again that the Committee has recommended the construction of this particular work. If the House agrees to support this motion, detailed planning and construction can proceed.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

– The Opposition supports the recommendation from the Public Works Committee.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 1099

SOCIAL SERVICES AMENDMENT BILL 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 August, on motion by Mr Hunt:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

– The legislation before the House at present, the amendments to the Social Services Act, deals with a number of items arising from the Budget. The Opposition supports what is in the Bill but feels that the Bill does not go far enough. Therefore, I move:

The amendment is seconded by the honourable member for Wills (Mr Bryant). I think one of the significant points about this debate is that in it the honourable member for Wills may well be giving his swan song, if that is the opposite to a maiden speech, in this House. We do not know when the election will be called. I am sure that if calling of the election is delayed in any way, it certainly will not be the final speech of the honourable member for Wills in this chamber.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jarman:
DEAKIN, VICTORIA

– I am sure the Chair hopes not.

Dr KLUGMAN:

-I think all of us who have known the honourable member for Wills appreciate his outstanding speaking ability, his great intelligence, and his great devotion to the forms of parliament and to the basic belief that the parliamentary form of government is the best form of government. I pay tribute - I am sure other members will join me- to the honourable member for Wills. I apologise for the sound of my voice. I have not had a teflon injection but I have the flu, and I will not be speaking for very long on this legislation.

In speaking generally to the Bill, I wish to make a number of points. The first is that the Government cannot claim that it has not the money to do the sorts of things we are proposing. About a quarter of an hour ago I showed to the Minister for Transport (Mr Hunt), who was at the table, tables which I will seek leave to incorporate in Hansard. They have been incorporated on a previous occasion. The first table shows that since the last Labor Budget in 1975-76 the duty collected by the Government in excise on oil and gas has increased by 1,096 per cent from $264m to $3,1 57m a year. The income tax paid by individuals has increased from $9, 219m to $ 1 7,070m- an increase of 85.2 per cent. The total tax revenue of the Government has increased from $ 16,843m to $3 1,796m- an increase of 88.8 per cent. Yet during the same period the consumer price index has increased by only 55.7 per cent. It is, therefore, quite clear that the proportion of money taken by the Government in income tax, in other taxation, and in excise duty has increased by amounts which are at least 50 per cent higher than those that would be justified by inflation. I seek leave to incorporate the first table in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The table read as follows -

Dr KLUGMAN:

– The first matter dealt with in our amendment is the indexing of a number of social welfare benefits so that beneficiaries obtain at least an even amount of benefit. The whole community accepts the proposition- although the Government sometimes argues against it in the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission - that indexing should apply to wages. We as parliamentarians certainly insist that indexing be applied to our salaries. Yet this Government does not index, and has not indexed, the benefits it pays to social security beneficiaries. Let me deal with some of those benefits, and later I will seek leave to incorporate a table in this respect. Unemployment benefit for those under the age of 1 8 remains at $36 per week. It was last set in May 1975, and since then there has been an increase of 62.6 per cent in the CPI. There has been an erosion of benefit of $23.60 in real terms since the last payment increase, yet there has been no increase for those people. For those over the age of 1 8 without dependants the present payment is $51.45. The date of the last increase was May 1978, and since then the consumer price index has increased by 20.5 per cent. The erosion of the benefit in real terms since the last payment increase - that is, the amount that should be paid to those persons to bring the benefit up to the previous value - is $10.50. All the Budget provides for is an increase of $2. Similarly the increase is well below what it should be for the guardian’s allowance. The children’s allowance, in the case of pensioners with children, was last increased in November 1975 and has remained at $7.50. Since then there has been an increase of 55.7 per cent in the consumer price index. Therefore, there is an erosion of $4. 1 8 in the value of the benefit. Yet the amount by which the benefit is increased in this election year is $2.50, a long way below the amount which would be required to compensate for the current inflation rate in this country. In November 1976 the handicapped child’s allowance was fixed at $65 a month. But because of the increase in the consumer price index an additional amount of $23.40 would be required. The present increase represents only $10 a month. This applies to all the remaining allowances.

The Opposition specifically refers to the family allowance in its amendment. The family allowance was introduced by this Government in July 1976 and has not altered. Since then the consumer price index has increased by 47.4 per cent. The amount required to compensate families for the loss in the value of the family allowance would be $ 1 .66 a week for a family with one child: $4.03 per week for a family with two children, and so on. There has been no increase whatsoever on that basis. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table showing those losses.

Leave granted.

The table read as follows -

Dr KLUGMAN:

-I thank the House. As far as the family allowance is concerned the Government has made the point in its Pocket Compendium of Selected Statistics, issued by the Department of Social Security, that the saving to the Government from freezing the single adult unemployment benefit was $103m. The saving to the Government from means testing of pension increases to people over the age of 70 was $1 1 3m. The saving by keeping the junior unemployment benefit at May 1975 levels was $68m. Those are impressive figures even if we did not realise how much taxation has increased. I indicated earlier that the amount of money collected by the Government in the last five years has increased by approximately $ 15,000m. Another interesting figure which appears in the Pocket Compendium of Selected Statistics is the $223m which the Department of Social Security said would be required to increase the family allowances by SI a child a week. This measure has been tipped by a number of newspaper columnists and writers as being one of the Government’s election campaign promises. The amount required is only $27m less than Labor’s proposed family income supplement. Yet it would do far less for the families in real need. Even if the Government promises all families the extra $1 a week for every child, it will not do what the Labor Party is proposing to do for those people on lower or middle incomes. For instance, a single parent - for example, a widow - with four children receiving $5,000 a year would get an additional $800 a year from Labor’s scheme but only $200 a year if the family allowance is increased by $ 1 for each child.

I will remind the House of the Labor Party’s proposal. If a family income is below $8,000 a year then the extra payment- I emphasise extra payment- in the family income supplement, in addition to the family allowance, will be $4 a week for each child. If the family’s income is between $8,000 and $10,000 it will be $3 a week for each child. If the family’s income is between $10,000 and $12,000 it will be $2 a week for each child, and a family earning between $12,000 and $14,000 a year will receive $1 a week for each child. Obviously, I do not know what final proposal, if any, the Government will put up during the election campaign or what the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) will announce in his Policy Speech. If any proposals come from the Government, I hope the Australian people will compare them with the proposals of the Opposition. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table illustrating the proposals of the Opposition.

Leave granted.

The table read as follows -

Dr KLUGMAN:

– I thank the House. I seek leave also to incorporate in Hansard a table which I previously incorporated on 26 August. It is a comparison of income to tax paying families from the family allowance scheme with what would have been received if tax rebates and child endowment had continued.

Mr Hunt:

– It looks like a receipt.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– It is an extract from Hansard.

Leave granted.

The table read as follows -

Dr KLUGMAN:

– I thank the House. I will deal now with the Bill in a little more detail and raise some queries. The Government has not completely thought through some of the propositions. The Government will get into some difficulties although I concede that some of the difficulties are not of its own making but arise from the acts of State governments, especially the Victorian Government. Firstly, we have the question of deserted wives. They have been the responsibility of the States during the first six months they are deserted. The Commonwealth Government has reimbursed the States for half of the State government expenditures on income support for certain sole mothers who are ineligible for Class A widows’ pensions or the supporting parent’s benefit. A number of States have withdrawn or have announced their intention to withdraw this support and the Government proposes to take over this obligation. The difficulty there is to de cide when a person has been deserted. The instructions to the officers of the Department of Social Security state that the husband and wife must be estranged and separated. That is not easy to define. A couple could be estranged and separated on a very temporary basis for one, two or three days, or they could be estranged and separated for ever. The difficulty is that the State governments established - they have had this responsibility for many years - a bureaucracy with certain rules and knowledge to deal with this problem.

There will be some difficulties experienced by the Department of Social Security. In discussions with officers of that Department I have been told that it will try to interview both parties. That will not be possible on a number of occasions. If it is a true estrangement and separation there is usually disagreement between the parties and often it will be difficult for the Department, where a wife claims to have been deserted, to be able to contact the husband to confirm her story of the separation. Such situations are difficult to classify. A parent has to have custody of the children to qualify. I doubt the ability of the Department’s staff members to cope with this problem. I hope they can. I am sure they will try, but I am sure there will be many problems when this provision first comes into being.

The next difficult question as I see it - and I think the Minister for Transport, who was at one stage Minister for Health, will in many ways understand this problem better than those dealing with social security - concerns the amendment which makes it possible to pay a pension to inmates of what are called ‘mental hospitals’, that is, people who are in the declared wards of mental hospitals. At present, what happens is this: Let us say Mr A is admitted into a psychiatric hospital and goes into one of the declared wards. Then his wife becomes eligible, subject to a means test, for a widow’s pension. But from 1 November this year that woman will no longer be eligible for a widow’s pension on the grounds that her husband is a mental hospital patient. However the husband will become a pensioner and the wife, of course, will obtain her share of the pension. The point I would like to raise- and I have had different answers from different people in the Department on this- is whether that wife will receive a full single rate pension or half a married rate pension. At present, if one of the two parties is in a nursing home, for example- in other words, they have separate outgoings- both of them receive single rate pensions. If they do not receive single rate pensions they will be significantly worse off. I ask the Minister whether they will be receiving single rate pensions.

Mr Hunt:

– They get the full single rate pension.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– So the wife will receive a full single rate pension?

Mr Hunt:

– That is correct.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– All she will lose, I think, will be the guardian’s allowance. I think there will be problems there. Whilst I can see that it is more consistent to do this - the Minister probably also realises this-in two States in Australia, South Australia and New South Wales, payments are expected from inmates of psychiatric hospitals.

Mr Hunt:

– Fees are charged.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– They are charged fees. Under the rules applying to nursing homes they will be charged seven-eighths of their pension.

That seven-eighths will go as a straight payment to the State governments. But surely we are not suggesting that in the other States the pensioner, though he is a full time inmate of a psychiatric hospital, will continue to receive S64.10 a week just because he is lucky enough to be in a psychiatric hospital in, say, Victoria rather than South Australia or New South Wales. I think there will be problems associated with this. Is this really just a transfer payment as far as some of the States at least are concerned? Will the other States be instructed to collect that seven-eighths of the pension and put it towards the upkeep of psychiatric hospitals? I think the Government has some problems there because in the case of ordinary hospital patients and nursing home patients the Government can insist on those payments going towards offsetting the costs of those institutions; but I am not sure that the Government can do so in regard to psychiatric hospitals because the Commonwealth Government does not accept any responsibility for the running of psychiatric hospitals. I hope the Government has thought that proposition through completely.

Mr Hunt:

– I would hope that the States concerned would go back to the pre-1954 arrangement.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– The pre-1954 arrangement being that they all charge or that none of them charge?

Mr Hunt:

– Back to the 1954 arrangement when no States originally charged.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– But the Minister has argued, I think with some justification although I may have opposed it at the time, that on the basis of equity a person who is a long term patient in, say, a country hospital and a pensioner should contribute towards his upkeep in the same way as a person would if he were in a nursing home. The same position arises with the person in the psychiatric hospital. At present we have the farcical situation whereby wards of hospitals are undeclared, if that is the opposite of being declared, because the State governments want patients to receive the pensions. If the Government’s proposition were to succeed, all wards would be declared and all those pensioners would be able to keep all their money. It shows me that the position has not been thought through completely satisfactorily. I think one of the difficulties here is, of course, that two separate departments are involved - the Department of Health and the Department of Social Security - and they have not seen all the complications that may arise.

I think that one of the points that ought to be emphasised in deploring the amending legislation now before the House is the discrimination against certain unemployment beneficiaries under the Social Services Act. This Government has now introduced - 1 think it is a step in the right direction - pensioner health benefit cards, for example, for sickness beneficiaries. But it still has not seen its way clear to introduce the same benefits for unemployment beneficiaries. There are other significant areas of discrimination against those who are on the unemployment benefit. First, the very obvious one is that we have different payments, not up to the normal single rate, for those who are under 18 and for those who are over 18 and who are single. I think that type of discrimination ought to be removed. We are obviously in the position now where many of the unemployment beneficiaries have been receiving unemployment benefit for a very long time. It is not just a temporary benefit to overcome a short term problem. In fact, the latest figures from the Department suggest that the average time for an unemployment beneficiary to be on unemployment benefit is 30 weeks. The average time for a sickness beneficiary to be on sickness benefit is 17 weeks. Therefore it is all the more important for those on unemployment benefit to receive a payment which enables them to live at least on the basic level of income so that they can keep going. I think it is quite silly to take the line that unemployment benefit is given only for a short time because people find jobs. Of course we now know that the average time on unemployment benefit exceeds six months.

Finally, I re-emphasise the point I made earlier concerning family allowances. I think this is an important point. I was one of those who applauded this Government when it introduced the family allowances because they were a definite benefit to non-taxpaying families. I thought it was a step in the right direction then, but because there has been no increase in benefits since their introduction in 1976 everybody has dropped a long way behind. When we remember that the total revenue of the Government has increased from $16.8 billion to $31.8 billion, an increase of $15 billion, I think the Government ought to see its way clear, especially as it keeps reiterating that it is confident it will overcome unemployment in the community, not that I believe that, at least to improve the level of unemployment benefit to some extent so as to make it possible for those on unemployment benefit to have a basic level of income. Often they are elderly people who have little chance of ever getting a job again and who will be on unemployment benefit for a long time. They suffer great difficulty in not having a benefit which is indexed and in not being able to obtain fringe benefits to which others in the community in similar circumstances are entitled. I therefore strongly urge the House to support the Opposition’s amendment to the second reading so as to get the Government to prepare a better amendment to the social services legislation.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-(Hon. Ian Robinson) - Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Bryant:

– I second the amendment.

Mr MCVEIGH:
Darling Downs

– We on this side of the Parliament of course reject the amendment moved by the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman). We support the legislation in its original form. It is true that the Westminster system operates on the basis of having a government and an opposition. It is also a cardinal rule of good government that justice is done when constructive policies are advanced from both sides of the Parliament. It ill-becomes any of us to criticise the views of any person, parliamentarian or party when we are dealing with legislation which fundamentally relates to people and their role and place in society.

I just offer a few words of rebuttal in the general sense to the mover of the amendment. I draw to his attention the fact that he, like so many members of his party, seems to have an obsession with spending money, particularly when it is someone else’s money. The Opposition seems to be under an illusion that Australia as a nation has plenty of money. I suggest to members of the Opposition that they would serve their party and the people they purport to represent in a far more meaningful way if they were to approach all pieces of legislation on a basis of justice rather than on a basis of political points scoring.

In a debate of this type one does not have the opportunity in the time allocated to rebut point by point the propositions that are expounded by the Opposition. Nevertheless, I want to cover most of the points raised by the honourable member for Prospect in a wide ranging philosophical debate. Firstly, I reject his proposition that the Government has plenty of money. This Government has the respect of the nation by virtue of the fact that it acts in a responsible manner. Whilst certain items cause concern and hardship, it is appropriate to remind the Opposition and the people of Australia that the allocation in the present Budget for social security benefits is 27.4 per cent of total Budget outlays. Total spending on this item is to be of the order of $9.9 billion, which is an increase of $900m in expenditure over that of last year.

I raise the point of the role of government not only in the area of social welfare but also in the area of its responsibility to the individual. It depresses me to note that total Budget outlays have risen from $8,102m in 1970-71 to $36,037m in the first year of the 1980s decade. This represents a 450 per cent increase. I make a protest at huge government spending which is a trend all over the world. I compliment the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser), the Cabinet and the Ministry for keeping the reins on irresponsible expenditure. I hope that in the next decade we will not see this type of huge increase in government expenditure and that, consistent with our philosophy and the deliberate aim and thrust of our policies, we will create a climate in which the individual’s role is sacrosanct, in which the individual is looked upon as a person of some importance and in which the individual is allowed to do with his money what he believes is best for him and his family. We do not support the philosophy of those who sit opposite of taking a person’s money and spending it for him as they see fit. They want to control him. I reject that platform and policy. It seems to me that the thrust of the speech of the honourable member for Prospect was to do more things for people by taking more money from them and spending it for them. I reject and I am opposed to such a policy.

I support fully the initiatives of the Prime Minister who has brought a sense of responsibility into what was an oasis of irresponsible spending by the previous government. If members of the Opposition were really students of international politics and international human behaviour they would know that there is a growing trend among young people overseas to rebel at the fact that they have to pay more taxes to keep social welfare payments up to their fellow men. That is a disturbing situation. I am disappointed to note that even in the kibbutzes of Israel there is a concern among young people about what they have to pay and how hard they have to work to enable elderly people to be looked after. If members of the Opposition advocate irresponsible spending in respect of this handout and that handout they will encourage the young people of Australia to follow the trend overseas and rebel. I pay tribute to the young people of Australia because they have not rebelled at the sacrifices they have been called upon to make to ensure that our grand old people, the pioneers of our society, can live in dignity free from worry. I applaud those young people for the responsible attitude they have adopted.

The honourable member for Prospect itemised certain problems. It is true that in any field of human endeavour, human undertaking or initiative there will always be someone who is above or below the average. It is very rare that a person is on the average. However, a government can legislate and plan only on averages. Our policy in this Budget has been one of responsibility; it has been a policy of giving help where it is needed. Society has always protected the weak. It has always looked after the handicapped. That has been an Australian philosophy. I can understand the attitude of the Opposition.

I do not want to criticise Aboriginal society but I know that Aboroginal society did not support the handicapped or the weak. It had methods of dealing with these people. I reject that philosophy of our native Australians. I can understand the point of view of people who support Aboriginal culture. That is not a matter for debate in this Bill but I impress upon these people that not everything in the Aboriginal culture is good. Australians can be proud of the fact that we have supported the weak and the handicapped. To me there is absolutely no better barometer of the quality of our Australian life than the love and concern we show for our elderly people, the poor and the afflicted. We can be proud of what this Government has achieved in that regard.

The honourable member for Prospect talked about the indexation of pensions. That, on the surface, seems a perfectly laudable and appropriate approach to adopt. But I cannot see that tying everything to indexation and the consumer price index is any sort of sacred cow. It appears to me to be more appropriate to remind the Opposition - it tends to forget this - that the Prime Minister was the first Prime Minister in the history of Australian politics to take social security matters out of the political arena. For too long members of parliament have waited with hushed breath on Budget night to hear what increases would be given to people in their electorates in receipt of social security benefits. That no longer is applicable. If the Prime Minister had achieved nothing else - he has a whole catalogue of achievements in the political sense and in social administration - he has taken social security payments out of the political arena in the Budget context. That is a remarkable achievement of a great Prime Minister. It has brought security of outlook and has removed fear from these old age pensioners and all people associated with social security payments.

I want to be generous because everyone knows that the National Country Party consists of generous and caring souls. I want to pay tribute to the members of the Press for their reporting of the recent Budget. Last year, honourable members will recall, they tried to create fear in the minds of old age pensioners in particular by suggesting that the Government would be doing this and the Government would be doing that. Surely these people can be freed from fear. This year the Press did not seek to stir up the emotions of people by suggesting that the Government would reduce payments. I pay tribute to the Press for having learnt, the hard way, that social security beneficiaries are only human. It is good to see that at least some members of the Press are men and women with hearts and not just people of steel.

I am disappointed to find that there has been an erosion of State rights, not by wish of the Commonwealth Government, but in fact by the State governments running away, as it were, from their responsibility to people such as sole parents. I cannot understand why State governments, which are always critical of us here in Canberra for wanting to take over their rights, have seen fit to absolve themselves from the responsibility of looking after these people when they have traditionally looked after them for the first six months. This is disappointing. I hope that when the Premiers of those states come down here they will not ask for the same amount of money because now the States will not have to meet this cost which is estimated at $49m per year.

All of us are delighted at the increase in allowance given to handicapped children. Much remains to be done, of course. I would like to see a longer commitment of the Government to allow planning for the erection of sheltered workshops and residences. In Queensland we have an excellent organisation called the Queensland Subnormal Children’s Welfare Association. It has the respect of people all over the State. Huge sums are donated voluntarily to the organisation because it has a humane approach. Members of the organisation express concern and deliberately go out to improve the lot of handicapped people. It is disappointing to know that though these people have exciting plans for the development of initiatives in the area of handicapped people, their implementation has been deferred. The Government has only a short term program, measured in the years of life expectancy of these children. Such programs are necessary to uplift the quality of life of these people who to me, and I know to fellow members of the National Country Party, are very special.

I want to compliment the honourable member for Wide Bay (Mr Millar) on the initiative he displayed in having a sheltered workshop allowance paid to farmers. The sub-normal people in the electorate of the member for Wide Bay just outside Gympie established a high quality, wellrun brahmin stud. Because of an anomaly these people were not paid an allowance similar to that which they would be paid for work in a sheltered workshop. The honourable member for Wide Bay through application and dedication and a sense of purpose based on justice and concern for these people was able to have this initiated. I know that what he has done will become the norm for the rest of Australia. Let us pause and remember that that was an achievement of the honourable member for Wide Bay and I am very proud indeed to be associated with him.

I wish to mention another point on which the honourable member for Prospect commented. I was disappointed at the fact that he failed to realise the cardinal emphasis behind the Government’s proposition and philosophy. I refer to those special people, the mentally ill. For too long in Australia mentally ill people have been looked on as second class citizens. That is not true. They are special people of dignity who unfortunately have an illness which society has criticised. Now that we have a more modern approach these people can live quite useful lives. I applaud the efforts of many people associated with this area of mental health. They have taken away the fences and the grilles and the mentally ill are allowed to live as ordinary people. How refreshing it is in a modern society to note that there is an acceptance of these people living like ordinary individuals in what might be termed a halfway-house situation.

I was disappointed, therefore, when the real thrust of the Government’s initiatives in this area was to bring a sense of dignity to those people, that the honourable member for Prospect did not see fit to acknowledge it. I refer to that fact because perhaps he is over keen to maintain a reasonable vote in the forthcoming election. How uplifting it must be for a woman whose husband is in one of these hospitals to find that she is no longer called a widow but like anyone else who has a husband she can be called a wife. I am proud to be associated with the Prime Minister and proud to be associated with the Government for taking the initiative so that notwithstanding a man’s illness his wife is treated just as my wife and is not called a widow. She is called a wife and is treated as a person of dignity who is a human being. I fully support these innovations and the thrust of the Government’s policies. These women deserve to be treated with dignity.

We have had discussion concerning indexation of allowances for dependent children. The allowance has gone up from $7.50 to $10 a week. The following figures counteract those given by the honourable member for Prospect. I do not blame him, he is trying to resurrect something of value for his party. For a widow with three children, one of whom is under six years of age, the fortnightly payment has been increased from $179.10 to $204.20 which is an increase of $25.10. Of course, on top of that she has the family allowance of $62.90. The family allowance is a product of the mind of the present Prime Minister, man of compassion and concern. I remind the Opposition that total spending on social welfare has increased from $5m in 1975-76 to $9.9m in 1980-81. Another matter which seemed to escape the attention of the Opposition is the good Government policy objectives outlined in the Social Services Amendment Bill 1980. 1 draw the attention of the Opposition and the Parliament to the fact that we are tying together all the instruments of government activity.

The Defence Force reserves payments are no longer taken into account when we are assessing rights for unemployment benefits. That is not a fractured approach or a League of Nations approach. It shows that the Government looks at the total picture. We in the Government are interested in defence. We also realise that there are lots of unemployed young people who have been discriminated against in the past when they have received their payments for attending Army Reserve camps and other activities. We have overcome that. We have varied the income testing arrangements. Previously a person over 21 in receipt of an income of $40 a week from casual employment would have lost $34 but now he will lose only $17. I remind the House that as far as my own party in Queensland is concerned and particularly through the efforts of Queensland’s Senator Sheil, the official policy is that a person can earn up to $50 a week without his pension being interfered with. Again, these matters indicate the concern of the Government. We deal with the totality of the person and his role in society. We are fully aware that a person has many pressing responsibilities in his life.

I conclude on this note. It is always a pleasure either to precede or to follow the honourable member for Wills (Mr Bryant). I compliment him for the interest and concern he has shown in Australian society and, above all, for his fairness to the members of the Australian Parliament.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-(Hon. Ian Robinson) - Order! The honourable member’s time has expired. Before I call the honourable member for Wills, I remind the House that the honourable member will leave Canberra this evening, I understand to participate in an overseas delegation. It is significant that this will be his silver jubilee speech to the House. I trust that on this occasion he will be accorded the same privilege as a member making his maiden speech.

Honourable members - Hear, hear!

Mr BRYANT:
Wills

– Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is true that at great personal inconvenience I am representing the Parliament overseas. As the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh) got under way I thought that, really, it was time to go. After all, this is about where I came in. I was a candidate in the 1954 and 1955 elections, following which there was an upgrading of the Australian social security legislation to cover many of the things that have been done over the last 25 years. All the dreadful spectres that were raised this afternoon by the honourable member for Darling Downs were raised then, and I notice that they are still running out in the Downs country. The same sorts of things were said about irresponsible expenditure and taking money from people to give it to others as handouts. Apparently the honourable member has an objection to taxes. I did not know that most of his farming fraternity paid any taxes. I think he was referring to my state after the House is dissolved and the election comes along when he referred to the grand old retired people. I want to remind the House of the long-running campaign to try to bring social security and social justice to every element of human society. As the honourable member admitted, there is a long way to go. I recall that in the 1954 election campaign, for instance, we argued for the abolition of the means test. I know that there is still a great deal of discussion about that, but the question of balancing it out between the people who do not need it and the people who do need it is still unresolved. I will cheer people up a little. In my maiden speech, which was made on the same night as that of the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser), I advocated the Commonwealth becoming involved as much as possible in education. We have got around to that, despite the resistance of some people opposite. I also advocated the need to try to bring the Constitution up to date for the Aboriginal people of Australia. At least I was able to take part in doing something about that, not that the people opposite - this is not said unkindly - seem to have noticed that yet.

What is the spirit of Australia’s social security legislation? It is an effort to produce some kind of social and economic equality for the citizens of this country. As my colleague the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) pointed out earlier, it is now a complicated piece of legislation which is almost impossible for beneficiaries to follow or to know what their entitlements are. As I have said, originally it was a hard-won charity, dragged from the pens of the people opposite by people who fought vigorously to do something for those in need. One only has to look at the arguments put in the past about age pensions and child endowment. It was said that people would start baby factories if we had child endowment; that maternity allowances would produce even more immorality than child endowment. Every social change to the advantage of the general community and of those in need has been predicted to be part of the road to ruin. That has never been the Labor Party’s view.

One of the four main planks of the Labor Party’s policy at Federation was age pensions. It is taking a long while to get to the stage where every person retiring in this country can be secure, and we still have a long way to go, as far as I can see. At this point of my argument I should refer to a situation which affects so many of us. Before I entered this Parliament I was a teacher in the Victorian Education Department. After 1 had been in this Parliament for three terms I qualified for a pension under the scheme we have. There are literally hundreds of thousands of ‘ people in Australia who have that measure of security - superannuation, pensions paid for, everything arranged - so that they can move into retirement with some sense of security.

Mr Young:

– Sixty per cent.

Mr BRYANT:

– As my friend points out, that applies to 60 per cent of the people. We are still dragging our feet for the other 40 per cent. I pay a tribute to my colleagues on this side of the House, and particularly to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Hayden) who was in charge of the Department of Social Security during the first two and a half years of our Government, for the steps that were taken to try to overcome the problem. We look upon social security not as a charity but as a right, and I raise the strongest possible objection to some of the terms that are applied to people who are unemployed - the use of the word ‘dole’ and the addition to it of the even uglier word bludger’.

I happen to be one of those people who started adulthood with three years of unemployment - from 1 932 to 1 935- so I have some idea of what it means to be unemployed. I speak on behalf of a generation who do remember and who still fight for those rights. The honourable member for Darling Downs talked about the young people who were going to object to keeping those in need and who were going to rebel. They have not done it in Australia yet, as he pointed out, but in other parts of the world he said that they had. I am not too sure that his reading of that situation is any closer to the facts than his reading of the Labor Party’s term of government.

How is Australia doing in the field of social security? First of all, we were early leaders and, strangely, we are still pioneers in one instance. As far as I can determine, this is the only country where long service leave is a universal right. In fact, I found in Europe that it was almost impossible to explain long service leave to some people. I hope that we get back very rapidly to the stage, immediately after the election, when we return a more sympathetic and understanding government where we will again set standards for the rest of the world. I do not know that we have to raise the standards so much as set the standards. There are still too many people in this world who think that if people are poor it is their own fault, that if they are deprived and dispossed it is because they did something wrong or there is some basis in their original sin. Our objective is to try to find some sort of equality among people, and I remind honourable members of our basic origins. Nearly every one of us in this Parliament, I should think - even the Prime Minister, as I understand it - has ancestors who came to this country with nothing much going for them but themselves. If honourable members look into their family origins they will see that most people came here because they were deprived or dispossessed in their homelands - mostly in Britain, but immediately post-war in Southern Europe.

I was in a taxi today and I asked the driver, who came from Trieste: ‘What was your situation when you came here?’ He said that when he got on the boat some 16 or 1 7 years ago he had about 5,000 Italian lire. In fact, he said that it was about $6 or $7. When he first put his feet on Australian soil he was penniless. So we have built a country out of equal people, and I hope that we maintain the spirit of equality. I give no support whatsoever to the idea that we should increase the inequalities, and our social security legislation must be aimed at trying to overcome them.

We live in a country where the higher salaries and the lower range of what might be called the middle salaries are closer than they are in most other countries, and I hope that we will keep it that way. But we have to appreciate that poverty is very real in our midst and that we still have to do something desperate and dramatic about it. Unfortunately, we seem to be afflicted with the obsessions that I found in the speech of my friend from Darling Downs. It was an interesting speech. He started in the age old way and talked about the things that we always say we want to do for other people, but dotted through his speech - one has to look very hard for it - was a sense of humanity and understanding that there were people in need and that we ought to do something about them.

If we are to concentrate on the obsessions of inflation, the money supply and development, we will forget what people are on about. It is a strangely materialistic society despite all the things we say about it. I cite as an example two cars crashing. The situation might be a little better in Canberra than in most places, but if the cars catch fire, who will be there first? It will be the fire brigade to put out the fire that is destroying property. Who is there next? It will be the police to see what happened and who caused the accident. If it happened in Melbourne on a Saturday afternoon and someone went looking for an ambulance or a doctor to look after the people, he would have an uphill battle. We have to change our priorities. In recent days we have had examples of the difficulties. We are told by the Catholic Commission on Justice and Peace that two million people are in a state of poverty. We all know of the great difficulties of deserted and single parents and the ill and of the sudden disasters that can strike down anybody. One does not have to be born poor to become poor in this country or in any other country. Migrants and the Aboriginal people come to mind in this respect.

I am inclined to ask those honourable members opposite who are concentrating so much on what one might call the money system, what it would be like if this Parliament lost its head and passed legislation to lift all levels of social security payments to a level to enable people to live in reasonable comfort. Let us assume that we doubled pensions. I am not advocating that as part of an election policy, but let us presume that the Government did that. What would happen? I think it is time we started to study some of the effects that could flow from some dramatic action which I suppose we are not likely to take. What would happen in the electorate of Wills if pensioners there suddenly found their incomes had doubled? I do not believe it would put great pressure on prices; the shops are well stocked with the things these people need. Many of them live in houses on which they could spend their money, repairing them, bringing them up to date and reducing their obsolescence. As my friend, the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young), pointed out, 60 per cent of the people in the community have some superannuation or pension security in their retirement. They may well have paid for it. We all pay substantially for our pension entitlement, but so do people who pay into superannuation funds. Superannuation is still a good investment on our part. I hope the whole community keeps up that practice.

We face other priorities about which honourable members opposite speak. They talk of priorities and of responsible attitudes in regard to the economy. I do not think there is any more damaging or divisive situation in this country than the shattering waste involved in unemployment. It is most divisive to the community, it is destructive to the people who are its victims and it is a total waste of human qualities and capacities. I think the time has come to design budgets around manpower and resources, trying to fit the money system to those things. I describe myself as a philosophical agnostic on these matters. It may be a strange delusion that we could manage the money supply, the monetary system, banking and taxation in such a way to adjust things so the wealth did flow to people in a more equitable way and so that we could put people to work on the things that are needed. It is true that I entered this place 25 years ago, having contested two elections before then for the seat of Deakin. Mr Speaker, you have suffered this same fate on occasions and it may well happen again. But in 1951 and 1954 the people lost their sense of proper political perception and did not vote for me in large enough numbers to send me here. There have been 31 Federal elections and I have contested 1 2 of them. I do not know how honourable members will get along without my participation in an election to keep them all in order.

I must say that it is time to lift our sights. We should take charge of the system. I know that my colleague, the honourable member for Darling Downs, does not mind my using him as a stalking horse in this debate. He has chosen to enter it and he has made some good points which one can find if one looks hard enough. But I would like to point out that this country has an enormous capacity to do anything. I find the effort that was put into the rehabilitation of Darwin interesting. The city was almost blown away and within 24 hours there was an enormous undertaking to shift supplies there and to bring people out. I think we brought out something like 35,000 to 40,000 people in four days. They were transported 2,000 miles across the continent. One might say that it was the equivalent of shifting the population of a major city from London to Cairo. Within a few weeks there was a major effort to restore, clear and repair Darwin. I do not remember anybody up there saying thanks, but it did show the enormous capacity we have to administer, construct and overcome immense difficulties.

This is not the lucky country. As I have said earlier, I think its principal luck is that most of us came here not born to rule, although we might get that delusion occasionally after having been here for two or three generations. We came here mostly as equal people, so attitudes in this country are basically equal. Everything that is here has been produced by human effort. That effort has been managed, and it has made the bricks, the steel rails and everything else. We import some goods, but not very many.

The real difference between this society and so many others is that we have overcome enormously difficult physical situations and made the desert blossom. I believe that one of the great deficiencies of the world is not the lack of trade in the Third World or its lack of resources. I was nearly going to say that the deficiency was good government, but honourable members opposite might take that to their hearts and think that I meant them. Perhaps I should use the term good government or even good administration. The difference between the management of this piece of real estate and that of, say, Thailand, Burma or some other country is simply the form of administration we have. Perhaps it is better if we consider a place like Holland, which is really only the size of a large cattle station but which has 14 million people who live in a very comfortable and prosperous way. There is also Britain, which is about the size of Victoria and has a population of SO million people. I have never been able to work out how a country with SO million Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen can be managed but it is.

If one landed on this planet from another planet, would one pick that piece of real estate first? I would think one might pick Thailand, Burma or a similar country where there are mountains, rivers, fertile soil, timber and minerals. There is even an intelligent and fairly sophisticated people. But, what is the difference? It is their capacity to administer. We have to remember that in this country there is an enormous wealth available through the mobilisation of our human resources, remembering that man can manage his own affairs, and that we have to find some way of managing our monetary system, it seems to me that we have built it around human resources and raw materials. The machinery for managing that is the money system. We seem to have surrendered to it so that it manages us. It is almost as if the interest rate has some particular, objective strength of its own or the money supply has some simple, strong objective force of its own. I do not believe that that is really the case. Other honourable members know and I know that there are people in the system who are actually managing it or trying to do so. Often their values are monetary and materialistic; they are not human values.

I have been gratified that for 25 years the system has been able to stand my membership of this Parliament. Many people have passed through this place since I have been here who have left their mark on the system in such a way that may well not be noted, but their works will not be forgotten. Of course, some members passed through here and were simply a part of the scene, but those people made the system work by being here. On the whole, 1 think the community of the Parliament is above the average level of the community in many ways, but we do not get much respect en masse from outside. Generally speaking, however, members receive great personal respect. Nasty things might be said about parliamentarians but they are not really meant for any particular honourable member, or Bill next door or even Bill just over there. People say: ‘He is all right. It is that other lot’. I think that is one of the strengths of the system.

Representative government is under great challenge. It always will be. In the last analysis it is the answer of human beings to forces that might overwhelm them, whether they are other human beings with power or whether it is other forces. I believe - I speak now as a dedicated socialist in these matters- that the only answer is to take full control of the system. The Government has to take charge of the economy. It does not have to run it all itself. There are dozens of ways of handling it, other than through government departments. I believe that no country that is the heir to all the centuries of struggle against political irresponsibility, as Australia is, ought to allow that to continue into the economic system. Nobody in Detroit should be able to sit down and make a decision which affects 10,000 or 100,000 Australians. Therefore I will not wish honourable members opposite all the best at the election. Perhaps I should say to the 80 or 90 honourable members opposite that I wish them all the luck they deserve. The new Government will ensure that they get put on the Hansard mailing list.

I have been gratified by the remarks that have been made about me. I am gratified on behalf of my electorate that my successor is a man of such distinction. I am gratified that the system is able to produce a continual flow of people into this place who can hold their own in any of the councils of the world. We may say things about one another, but perhaps it is part of the social therapy to be able to take someone in a high place, abuse him to his face, but not get thrown into a dungeon.

This may not be my farewell speech. After all, the Prime Minister might decide that we do not need elections at all and I will be back. If not, I will be watching the events in the Parliament. I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for the tolerance that you have shown me in allowing me to go over time for a few moments. The honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Bourchier) has chosen not to have me silenced at last.

Honourable members:

– Hear, hear!

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman has spent 25 years bending the rules; I did not see why he should stop now. I take the opportunity from the chair to say to the honourable member for Wills, my good friend Gordon Bryant, who entered the Parliament on the same day as did I, the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser), the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen), and the honourable member for Hughes (Mr Les Johnson), that it has been a great honour to be his colleague. I am sure the entire House would thank him for his service in the House, where he has proved to be a parliamentarian who has always put the House above all else. On behalf of the House I wish him a very healthy, happy retirement.

Sitting suspended from 5.58 to 8 p.m.

Question put:

That the words proposed to be omitted (Dr Kingman’s amendment) stand part of the question.

The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker-Mr P. C. Millar)

AYES: 51

NOES: 24

Majority……. 27

AYES

NOES

In Division -

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar:

Order! There is no point of order.

Mr Hodgman:

– It is a lie, and the honourable member for Prospect ought to be put on a lie detector.

Dr Klugman:

– The honourable member for Denison still has a chance to leave that side of the chamber.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Prospect will remain silent. The honourable member for Denison has offended parliamentary decorum in an oblique fashion and I ask him to withdraw the unparliamentary term he used.

Mr Hodgman:

– I withdraw.

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Amendment negatived.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

In Committee

The Bill.

Mr HUNT:
Minister for Transport · Gwydir · NCP/NP

– I move:

The purpose of this amendment is to make a technical change to a transitional provision of the Bill as introduced. The change affects the basis on which the provisions concerning the payment of certain instalments of unemployment and sickness benefits will be applied. The provisions concerned are those relating to the exclusion from the pension and benefit income tests of the pay and allowances received by members of the defence forces, the increase of $2 per week in the rate of unemployment benefit payable to persons over the age of 1 8 without dependants, and the liberalisation of the unemployment and sickness benefit income test. Unemployment and sickness benefit is paid fortnightly on each individual’s own particular pay day, but in respect of entitlements that arise in each of the two separate weeks in the fortnight. In the Bill as introduced it was proposed that these amendments in the unemployment and sickness benefit area would apply only in respect of weeks ending on or after the relevant commencement date.

Honourable members will have noted, however, that all other changes proposed by the Bill which provide for increased payments of pensions and other benefits are to apply for fortnights ending on or after the dates on which those changes commence. For example, persons in receipt of age, invalid and widows’ pensions or supporting parent’s benefit will receive, on the first pension pay day in November, an increase in the amount of additional pension or benefit for children for the two weeks ending on that date. Additionally, persons entitled to increases in pensions and benefits, including unemployment and sickness benefits, arising from the automatic six-monthly indexation provisions of the Social Services Act will also receive in their first payment in November the benefit of these increases for a full fortnightly period. The amendment is designed to ensure that unemployment and sickness beneficiaries will be afforded the full benefit of the changes proposed in these areas for all fortnightly instalments falling due on or after the relevant commencement date.

Mr KERIN:
Werriwa

– This minor amendment to the Social Services Amendment Bill is relatively non-controversial, but the very basic question remains the level to which this Parliament will assist those who are dependent on social welfare. The very least the Government can do is to maintain the value of those benefits by proper indexation. According to a report issued this week by the Catholic Commission on Justice and Peace, almost two million people in Australia live in severe poverty and are worse off than poor people in many other developed countries. It seems to me that the Government is rather deluded if it thinks, as some honourable members on the other side of the chamber suggest, that this Bill represents a major advance in the social welfare of this country. The dimensions of poverty simply have to be realised by the Government. The people who are poor in our society are powerless and they tend to fall into two categories - people who are born into poverty or people who, through circumstances, become poor. People can become poor simply through family breakdown, which can be caused by domestic violence, desertion, or a death in the family. They can become poor, as many today are, simply because they lose their jobs.

As I said, this Government needs to be presented with some of the facts about the poor in this country. The poor are not only getting poorer but also are growing in numbers. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Australians have joined the ranks of the very poor in the past five years. It is estimated that there are 15,000 homeless men, women and children in Sydney alone. Yet those people are just the visible tip of the iceberg. Poverty is on the march behind the doors of tens of thousands of homes in Australia. All voluntary agencies have reported an unprecedented demand for emergency aid. That has been occurring in my electorate with respect to the need for emergency housing for homeless girls and for people who simply do not have anywhere to live. Social welfare agencies estimate that two million Australians 800,000 of them children - now fall into the ‘very poor’ category. Although, as I have mentioned, there are no hard figures on the very poor, the huge upsurge in the past five years in long term unemployment and in the numbers of lone parent pensioners is estimated to have swollen the ranks of the very poor.

Mr McVeigh:

Mr Deputy Chairman, I take a point of order. We are in Committee and my understanding of the Standing Orders is that the debate should be relevant to the matter under consideration in the Committee. The honourable member is quite obviously trying to score cheap political points in a highly technical area associated with the amendment. I suggest to you, Mr Deputy Chairman - you are a competent chairman - that you draw the honourable member’s attention to the fact that he is not at liberty to indulge in a wide-ranging debate.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Drummond) - The honourable member has made his point.

Mr McVeigh:

– He should either talk to the Bill or admit that he does not know what he is talking about.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- The honourable member for Darling Downs has made his point. When I tried to intervene in what the honourable member was saying he belaboured the point. I think the honourable member for Werriwa perhaps is straying a little from the context of the Bill, although there is an opportunity for this type of debate to be reasonably wide-ranging. I will listen with caution to what the honourable member for Werriwa has to say.

Mr KERIN:

– I believe that the Social Services Amendment Bill is one of the major Bills to come before this chamber every year.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- We are dealing with a clause of it.

Mr KERIN:

– The Minister for Transport (Mr Hunt), who is at the table, moved an amendment which covers largely the changes to the Act the Government has introduced as part of the Budget measures. The Minister, in the amendment to which he has just spoken, pointed to the provisions relating to all pensions and benefits. He referred to the unemployment benefit, the Defence Reserve Forces, sickness benefits and pensioner benefits. To my mind, what I am trying to talk about is relevant to all those areas.

In the second reading debate, truncated as it was with two speakers from this side of the chamber and one from the other, the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh), the only Government member who spoke, tried to make out that these measures represented some sort of advance in social welfare. I make the point that the dimensions of poverty in this country are not really apprehended by the Government, and the very poorest members in our society have not received any attention. The Government, by this measure, is making only marginal advances in major areas. For example, the sole parent’s concession now picks up the tab for the first six months rather than the State agencies doing so or special benefits being paid to those people. The reason the Government has had to move in this area is simply that some States were not actually doing it, as were New South Wales and Victoria. Similarly, the relaxation of income tests for unemployment and sickness benefits was well overdue, as were payments to patients in mental hospitals.

One could talk a lot about the plight of people in this country who are mentally ill or mentally retarded. I make the point that the Government is acting in only a very marginal way. In other words, the only dramatic change this Government has extended in the social welfare field is the family allowance. That was an improved policy in terms of social justice, but although it represented a saving to the Government in the very short term, the family and living standards of average wage and salary earners were lowered due to the inroads of inflation. So the one concession this Government has made of a dramatic nature and of a nature that can be justified has been allowed to fade away with inflation. These measures, which the amendment moved by the Minister tidies up, are very small indeed. They are crumbs to those most in need. The unemployed and the low income families have received very little from the Budget and from the Bill we are discussing. Most of the increases in expenditure in the Budget are a result of the increased numbers of all pensions and benefits and of the indexation of all pensions and benefits, with the exception of unemployment and special benefits. I point out that the Government really could not get out of this expenditure and that there are no great concessions in the Budget.

We should remember that in the first Budget after the 1977 election the Government, contrary to promises, cut indexation from twice-yearly to once-yearly. It was restored only after public outcry. In these measures there are a few token gestures to a few needy children, but there is neglect of hundreds of thousands of others. There are no work programs for the needy young jobless and the needy unemployed are thrown crumbs, insulting in their meanness, which will cost the Government very little. There is a concession in the Bill we are discussing allowing people on the unemployment benefit to earn more money before their benefit is curtailed. The value of the unemployment benefit for people under the age of 18 still remains at $36. It has been at that level for four or five years now. The value of that benefit would have to be increased by $23.60 to get it back up to the $36 level it was at when it was first introduced. That is why I am saying that this Bill provides only crumbs for a few of those people in need.

This family allowance, which was once called by the Minister responsible ‘the most important innovation in social welfare for decades’, has never been increased since it was introduced. The Government has just knocked over an amendment moved by the Opposition to bring in indexation of the allowance. The family allowance has lost almost half of its value. The needy families suffer most from this neglect. That is- why the Australian Labor Party has a policy that will increase the family allowance for those people and particularly for those most in need. For example, families earning less than $8,000 a year will find that their family allowance payment has increased by $4 a week for each child. That is a flat rate increase. In this income group a mother of two children will receive a payment of $70 a month. The rate decreases as the income rises because this is essentially a policy to help those most in need. If a family earns between $8,000 and $10,000 a year it will receive an additional $3 a week for each child; a family earning between $10,000 and $12,000 a year will receive an additional $2 a week; and a family earning up to $14,000 per annum will receive an additional $1 a week. It is essential for people dependent on social welfare in this country to have the value of those benefits insulated against inflation. If this does not happen, society will again redistribute income away from those most in need. It should not be distributed to those least in need.

Mr HUNT:
Minister for Transport · Gwydir · NCP/NP

– I respond to the remarks of the honourable member for Werriwa (Mr Kerin). I am well aware of the report of the Catholic Commission on Justice and Peace and the Commission’s concern about the levels of poverty in certain sections of the Australian community. The House should be aware also of the concern of the Government in trying to redress the areas of poverty in the Australian community. I think it has done a jolly good job. In the last five years we have seen very close to a 100 per cent increase in the allocation of funds for social welfare. When this Government assumed office in 1975, the expenditure on social welfare was of the order of $5 billion. This Budget brings that level of expenditure up to $9.9 billion which is almost a 100 per cent increase. In that time there has been an accumulated increase in the consumer price index of the order of 65.6 per cent. So this Government has more than indexed its social welfare payments. It has gone ahead of the rate of increase in the consumer price index.

The whole purpose of this amendment is to try to ensure that those people who are receiving benefits will get the full fortnightly benefit on their first pay-day. I think it is a thoroughly good amendment, one designed to try to assist people in the community such as the aged, invalid and widowed pensioners; those people who are receiving the supporting parent’s benefit and, of course, people who are receiving the unemployment benefit, the sickness benefit and so on. I would be very surprised indeed if the Opposition choose to oppose this amendment. It is designed to ensure that there is no doubt that those people will get the full value of the benefit on the first pay day.

This Government has an outstanding record in the field of social welfare. The most reasonable minded people agree. We have attempted to impose on this country sound economic management and we have done so. When this Government came to office, this country was in a state of absolute economic disarray. Honourable members should turn their minds back to 1975 and recall the sort of economic chaos that existed in this country. The people in the community who suffered most were those who could least afford it. The people who were the poorest in the community suffered the most under that regime as they always do in a high inflationary situation. This Government has not only tried to stabilise the economy of this country but also has done a tremendous amount to ensure that those sections of the community in need are helped. The record of the Liberal and National Country Parties in social welfare since 1 948 is among the best of all governments in the Western world. I stand by that statement and have no doubt that it is absolutely true. We had three years of a Labor Government in this country and we saw economic chaos. The people who suffered most were the poorest people in the community.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

– I was not going to enter the debate again but the Minister for Transport (Mr Hunt) has stirred me to do so. I do not know whether his arithmetic is not terribly good, or whether he has been improperly advised by his advisers. He has told us that there has been an increase from $5.5 billion to $9.9 billion in the payment of social security services.

Mr Hunt:

– I said ‘social welfare’.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– The Minister said that there had been nearly a 100 per cent increase. If we work it out very quickly it is about 80 per cent. The Minister told us that it was 100 per cent, yet he compared it with an increase in the consumer price index.

Mr Hunt:

– I said ‘very close to 1 00 per cent’.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– Very close to 100 per cent; that is the sort of figuring done by the Minister all the time. He refers to the increase in expenditure as being close to 100 per cent, says that the consumer price index has gone up by 80 per cent and tells us that that is terribly good. But the Government has increased the figure by a lesser amount than the increase in the consumer price index if the consumer price index figure is correct. The Government has increased spending from $5.5 billion to $9.9 billion, an increase of $4.4 billion. That amount of $4.4 billion is 85 per cent of $5.5 billion if I am correct. I add the further point that the increase has been, to a large extent, taken up by $1 .2 billion, the amount necessary to cover the transfer from taxation benefits to the family allowance. So, SI. 2 billion of the $9.9 billion is absorbed. That brings the figure down to $8.7 billion instead of $9.9 billion. A further very significant increase is due to the fact that unemployment has gone up a tremendous amount during the time that this Government has been in power. Unemployment benefits are paid now to about twice as many people than under the last Labor Government.

Mr Hunt:

– That figure is not correct. You are wrong on that figure and I will prove you incorrect.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– That is approximately correct. I do not have the figure. Even if we ignore the unemployment benefit, the real increase is some $3.2 billion, not $5.5 billion, which is an increase of about 60 per cent compared with an increase in the consumer price index - as the Minister put it - of 88 per cent during that period. I think that clearly illustrates that payments for social security services have not kept up with the cost of living increases. That, of course, is the reason why the Opposition has argued that the average family in Australia is significantly worse off than it was back in 1975-76. To me it is terribly obvious that there is no way in which we could change those figures. The average tax paying family is very significantly worse off and the average social security beneficiary is very significantly worse off. Even those people who normally support this Government, those people over 70 years of age on an age pension who have some outside income, are very significantly worse off because they have had no increase in their pension for the last two or three years. They are the people to whom the Government promised a lot and who have been the ‘backbone’ of the Liberal Party, the most conservative sections of the community who have built up a nest egg. They are some of the people hardest hit by this Government. Those honourable members who have received letters and complaints about what this Government is doing know very well that those people object very strongly to what this Government has done in the last three or four years.

Amendment agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with an amendment; report - by leave - adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Mr Hunt) - by leave- read a third time.

page 1115

DEFENCE SERVICE HOMES AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 August, on motion by Mr Groom:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Mr FIFE:
Minister for Education · Farrer · LP

Mr Deputy Speaker, may I have your indulgence to suggest that the House have a general debate covering this Bill and the Repatriation Acts Amendment Bill 1980 as they are associated measures. Separate questions will, of course, be put on each of the Bills at the conclusion of the debate.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Hon. J. D. M. Dobie

– Is it the wish of the House to have a general debate covering these two measures?

Mr Uren:

Mr Deputy Speaker, may I get the agreement of the Minister for Education that the person leading for the Opposition on the Repatriation Acts Amendment Bill be given a time of up to 30 minutes in which to speak as he is the only speaker from our side?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-The Minister is agreeable to that. There being no objection to a cognate debate, I will allow that course to be followed.

Mr UREN:
Reid

– The purpose of the Defence Service Homes Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1980 is to increase the maximum loan under the Defence Service Homes Scheme from $15,000 to $25,000. 1 might add that the lending limit has not been increased since 1974, when a Labor Government increased it. This legislation increases the maximum loan by another $10,000. However the interest paid on the new loans will be substantially greater. The first $12,000 will be provided at the old concessional rate of 3.75 per cent per annum and the next $3,000 at 7.25 per cent per annum. Of course, the next $10,000 will be provided at 10 per cent per annum. As I say, the maximum loan has not been increased since 1974. Therefore on behalf of the Opposition I move:

We know that the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr Groom) and the Government have come under enormous pressure from the exservicemen’s association to increase the loan. We know from reading ex-servicemen’s journals of the enormous criticism the Minister has come under because of the fall in value of the loan. I will deal with that later in more detail. In 1974, at the time when the last increase was made to $15,000, the average value of a house and land package as estimated by the then Australian Housing Corporation, which administered defence service homes under the Labor Government, was $25,456. Today the cost of a new house and land package at the bottom end of the market in the capital cities is about $42,000. In six years the price at the bottom end of the market has risen by $17,000. After six years of no increase in the maximum defence service homes loan, the Government has now decided to lift the maximum loan limit by $ 1 0,000 at an interest rate of 1 0 per cent per annum for borrowings in excess of $15,000.

The inadequacy of the new maximum loan limit is seen more clearly when we consider the median - and I stress that word - price of established housing in the capital cities. According to the Real Estate Institute of Australia, at the end of June 1980 the median price of a residence or land and dwelling in Sydney was $72,700. In Melbourne, it was $44,400; in Perth, $44,200; and in Canberra, $43,200. A maximum loan of $25,000 for low and middle income buyers in those cities is not a realistic limit.

The Bill provides too little too late for too few. Former members and serving members of the defence forces most in need of home loan assistance are now virtually denied the use of the Defence Service Homes Scheme. The present Government has increased the purchase price limit of a home which may be purchased under the Home Savings Grants Scheme to $45,000. But in Sydney, for instance, one has to travel 25 to 30 miles from the centre of the city along the western corridor, that is 1 0 to 1 5 miles west of Parramatta, to get a house and land for $45,000. Alternatively one would have to go along the south-western corridor beyond Liverpool into the Campbelltown region to buy a $45,000 home. Under the present arrangement, for a person seeking to buy a $45,000 home the gap between a $25,000 loan and the house price is $20,000. It would take a person on average earnings, saving 20 per cent of his income, nine years to save the necessary amount. But by that time the price of the house and land would have risen further beyond his reach.

For most people a second mortgage would be necessary, and we know that at present second mortgage finance is available only at exorbitant interest rates. A new Labor Government would re-establish the Australian Housing Corporation which would investigate the second mortgage market. Under our Administration, the Australian Housing Corporation, under the chairmanship of a distinguished South Australian, Alec Ramsay, who was also the Chairman of the South Australian Housing Trust, and under the Deputy Chairmanship of Mr Pat Troy of the Australian National University and with the assistance of such distinguished people as Hugh Stretton, a distinguished university lecturer and former professor who wrote several books not only on philosophy but also on urban living, and a person who even under the conservative government, has been re-appointed to the South Australian Housing Trust, carried out an enormous amount of work in regard to the second mortgage market. Such work was well advanced at that stage. The Corporation, when it is re-introduced, will use its influence by way of government guarantees for persons participating in such schemes as the Defence Service Homes Scheme and other schemes as well. Banks will be requested to provide second mortgage loans structured over the longer term at an interest rate slightly above the interest rate then prevailing for first mortgage loans. There would need to be a guarantee by the Australian Housing Corporation to give encouragement to those lending authorities to bring this about.

The waiting time for a defence service homes loan is expected to be 10 months in the current financial year. The Government boasts that the waiting time of 14 months last year has been reduced. It should be remembered that the waiting period was increased from 11 months to 14 months last year in order to confine expenditure to the funds available. In effect the waiting time this year will be no longer than it was a year ago. The price of housing will not remain stable during the waiting period. It will continue to rise in Sydney. It will rise even more sharply in Melbourne and Perth where it is already on the upgrade. We have seen, for instance, a rise of 16.3 per cent in the price index of materials used in home building in the six capital cities to July 1980. 1 particularly stress that in Melbourne alone the price of building materials has increased by 18.4 per cent in the last year. The new loan limit will be even less realistic than the present limit by the time applicants receive their loans.

We have to look in depth at the history of what has occurred in the defence service homes area. We have to look also at the role played by defence service homes in relation to the rest of the housing sector. Later I will deal in passing with the overall aspects of both private sector and public sector housing. I would like to give the House some statistical background to defence service homes loans from 1950-51 to 1980-81. Perhaps the House would be good enough to allow me to incorporate these three separate tables in Hansard. I will then develop my arguments on this material.

Leave granted.

The tables read as follows -

Mr UREN:

-I thank the House and particularly the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Mr Adermann). I would like to examine the historical development of defence service homes loans from 1950-51 to the present day. The statistics which I have incorporated deal with the number of homes provided, the gross capital expenditure, the number of applications and the average cost of dwelling and land in New South Wales. In 1950-51, 15,500 homes were provided under this scheme. In 1979-80, which is the last year for which I have figures, 5,251 homes were provided. One can see the enormous drop in the number of homes provided. We should bear in mind that we may have been generous to ex-servicemen in the years straight after the war. At that time pride for our ex-servicemen was still in the blood of those on the Government side. We were more generous to them then. If we look at the historical development in later years we see the extent to which they have slipped down the scale. Now very little consideration is given to them.

I now turn to gross capital expenditure. I. should point out that the amounts set out are in 1 950-5 1 values. In 1 950-5 1 , $50m was made available. In that year 23,500 applications were received- the average cost of a dwelling and land in New South Wales was$4,160.I intend to seek leave to incorporate in Hansard another table which shows that the maximum loan in 1950-51 represented 96 per cent of the cost of an average home.

In 1950-51 there were 23,000 applicants; in 1973-74 there were 15,700; and 1974-75 there were 14,800. However, in 1979-80 there were only 6,240 applicants. One might ask why there has been this downturn in the number of applicants. One might say that ex-servicemen are getting older and therefore the former need for housing no longer exists. But that is not the situation. Exservicemen have served in Korea and Malaya. They have also served in Vietnam. I was opposed to servicemen going to Vietnam. However, having gone there, on their return they should be entitled to the maximum repatriation, housing and health benefits. But what is the situation? I would like to quote from page four of the 1978-79 report of the Defence Service Homes Corporation. This is what the Corporation had to say in regard to the reduction in the number of applications:

The rapidly reducing pool of unassisted persons with qualifying services under the Special Overseas Service Act and possibly the inability of younger applicants to finance the purchase of construction of a home with the assistance of a loan of $15,000

The real reason for the drop in the number of applications is the unrealistic size of the loan. Government members love to wear their returned services badges with pride. They are proud that they are ex-servicemen. I remember in my early days in this Parliament- I have been a member of this place for 22 years- Government members would rant and rave about the red terror. They would really make great play of the fact that they worked for ex-servicemen. This Government has been responsible for the greatest sellout of exservicemen in the history of this country. The Government has given ex-servicemen an enormously bad deal. I know the men in the Forces and I know that the rank and file are aware of the enormous sellout by this Government.

I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard also a table which deals with the maximum value of the loan available under the Defence Service Homes Scheme, as well as a table which shows values of maximum defence service homes loans in relation to average price of land and house in New South Wales.

Leave granted.

The tables read as follows-

Mr UREN:

-I thank the House. Between 1 July 1949 and 10 December 1951 the maximum loan available was $4,000. It was changed again on 9 November 1954 to $5,500 and it remained at that level until 16 March 1962. From March 1962 to November 1968 it was increased to $7,000. From November 1968 to December 1971 it was set at $8,000. The loan was increased to $9,000 from December 1971 to May 1973. The Labor Government increased the amount to $12,000 after it had been in office for a few months. After Labor came to office the maximum loan remained at $12,000 from May 1973 until it was increased in December 1 974 to $ 1 5,000. The interest rate on $12,000 remained at three and three quarters per cent and the additional $3,000 attracted interest at the rate of seven and one quarter per cent, That has remained so until now when this Government is determined to change the situation. I ask the Government and its supporters to look at the human justice and the equity that we provided for ex-servicemen in those few years we were in government.

In 1950-51 the housing loan represented 96 per cent of the value of the home. By the early 1960s the figure had dropped to 71 per cent of the value of the home and by 1 972 was equal to 53 per cent. After we took government the figure rose to 55 per cent but after losing power it dropped by 1978-79 to 36 per cent. On present values it is down to 34 per cent of the cost of a home. In other words, the loan now represents only one third of the value of the home. I am talking now about the average cost of a residence or land and property, say, in the State of New South Wales because I am dealing specifically with that State. I am not dealing with Australia as a whole because of the enormous variations from State to State and city to city. As I said, the medium cost of land and property in Sydney is $72,700 and the loan now represents only 34 per cent of that cost. I have maintained consistency all the way through by using the one State. Therefore, I believe the proposition to be inadequate.

I think we have to recognise that this loan will really help only the wealthy ex-serviceman and wealthy serviceman. It will not really help those people battling on low incomes who are struggling for urgently needed housing. In passing I want to say clearly across the board, as I have said often before, that next to unemployment housing is the most serious social problem in this country. Not only is the Government starved of the finance of the housing sector both in the private and public areas but also it has cut back the amount of money in public sector housing from 3.9 per cent of government expenditure in 1974-75 to one per cent this year. Most of that money of course goes to the States for what is known as the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement to be used for housing commission homes. That is an enormous cut-back and I hope, if I have enough time, to deal with those figures.

What was occurring in the private sector as a result of the Government’s policy? The Government has decided to divert most of its priorities to the resource development of this country. For instance, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, who is at the table, as a National Country Party Minister should really be looking after the farmers. Those in leadership of the National Country Party are more orientated to the wealthy mining companies and mineral resource extraction so that is the area in which the development is occurring. What is happening is that the new philosophy is to step up the development of minerals into resource development and processing, particularly with aluminium smelters. To back up the infrastructure of the aluminium industry interest rates have been set at a record level. One has only to look at the daily newspapers to find that interest rates are 12.3 per cent.

Dr Everingham:

– Electricity loans.

Mr UREN:

– That is right; it is as the honourable member says. The money is for the electricity authorities to support the aluminium industry. In the private sector the banks are able to offer money at an interest rate of nine per cent for housing. The building societies will offer only 10 per cent. If an investor sees a government backed guarantee with an interest rate of 12.3 per cent, where does he determine where to put his money? It will have to be decided whether the money should be used to support housing for the people or put into the aluminium or electricity authorities to help develop and support the corporate sector. Because life is so difficult there will be a tendency to put the money into those local government authorities’ loans that support the aluminium industry and electricity authorities. That is what is happening.

The decade ahead of us will be a very tight time for liquidity for the housing sector. Therefore, because of the priorities of this Government, housing in the private sector will suffer dire consequences. That will be the area squeezed and the area that will suffer a great deal. If that is the policy of the Government in order to meet that situation and because money will be hard to get in the private sector we will then have to divert greater amounts of money through such schemes as the Defence Service Homes Scheme to help servicemen or divert money through the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement. On the Defence Services Homes Scheme, the money made available under the scheme in 1974-75 amounted to $130m. What is the situation now? That amount was cut down in 1978-79 to $77m. In 1979-80 the amount was reduced to $75m and of course this year it has gone up to $ 1 1 1 m. This year we have an amount of $111m compared with $130m six years ago while there has been something like a 40 per cent increase in inflation during that period. I would have thought that the Government would have made more money available through the Defence Service Homes Scheme and through the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement. For instance, in 1974-75 expenditure in public housing represented 3.9 per cent of housing expenditure but now it is down to one per cent. Actually, it is worse than that because in 1974-75 after the States had made repayment on advances and paid the interest, and that was subtracted from the amount received, the $709m in that year was reduced to $51 5m. In 1980-81 the $276m available has been reduced to $7 5. 7m. Australia-wide that is about one-seventh of the amount made available back in 1974-75. I stress that when looking at this difficult social problem of housing one cannot divorce the Defence Service homes sector from the other sectors of housing. All I can say is that the record of this Government is disgraceful. Frankly, the ex-servicemen in this Parliament, particularly Government supporters, should be ashamed of the Government’s record. At present the Returned Services League is meeting in this capital city and it should clearly condemn the Government for the way it is treating ex-servicemen.

I believe that the whole social program priorities of this Government stand condemned. For instance, prior to the debate on this Bill we discussed social welfare. The Minister for Transport (Mr Hunt) was congratulating the Government on the enormous increase in the money spent on social welfare. The truth is that the programs carried out represent the priorities of this Government. Over the last five years there has been diversion of moneys away from the people, and approximately $4,000m has been transferred to the private sector. When I talk about the private sector I include the corporate sector because one has to understand that of the 200,000 companies in this country that submit taxation returns, fewer than 400 - less than one-fifth of one per cent - share more than 50 per cent of company profits. It is that sector that this Government really represents, and that enormous wealth - over $4,000m - has been transferred away from the people to the wealthy companies. I refer particularly to the Minister for Trade and Resources, (Mr Anthony), the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Nixon), and other Ministers, who represent the very wealthy element in our society. As a result of this enormous transfer of money the little people have suffered, particularly in relation to the housing sector, which includes exservicemen’s entitlements under the Defence Service Homes Scheme.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. J. D. M. Dobie) - Is the amendment seconded?

Dr Everingham:

– Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker, I second the amendment. As we are having a cognate debate, I reserve my right to speak on the Repatriation Acts Amendment Bill.

Mr MCVEIGH:
Darling Downs

– We on the Government side reject the amendment and support the original legislation. I remind the honourable member for Reid (Mr Uren) that the salient point of the Defence Service Homes Amendment Bill, is that for the first time people have access to $25,000 for the purpose of building their own homes. I also remind him that the increase is the greatest in 62 years, being of the order of two-thirds, and I believe that he should have taken notice of that increase when he was making his comments. It is true that the cost of housing has increased over the years, and maybe it is difficult for a person to purchase a home even with the assistance of the $25,000 grant.

However, the scheme was never meant to supply the total amount of funds required for the purchase of a home. Rather it was designed to assist people who were placed in a difficult position on account of their war service, and in later years, following the initiative of the Labor Administration, to assist people who were in the defence forces but were required to serve in different parts of Australia and consequently were not in a position to purchase a permanent home. The Defence Service Homes Scheme has been most successful since it was introduced some 62 years ago. We must at all times be cognisant of the fact that without it many many people would not have been able to purchase their homes. Like the honourable member for Reid, I fully support the argument that, aside from the opportunity to work, the opportunity of having a roof over one’s head is of paramount importance to an Australian. The honourable member for Reid forgot to emphasise that under this legislation the waiting time will be reduced from 14 months to 10 months. That indicates a worthwhile input of finance by the present Government, allowing more loans to be taken up in a quicker time, and that is very important. We should also realise that the overall interest rate of 7 per cent, which is the combination of the various interest rate structures, is well below that which would have to be paid by a member of parliament or by anyone outside who was taking up a loan for the purchase of a home. We must give credit where it is due.

In a difficult financial situation, where the Government has exercised responsibility in endeavouring to contain budgetary outlays, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Mr Adermann) has been singularly successful in getting a huge increase in funds, which will cut the time lag in making funds available and result in an overall reasonable interest rate for a person purchasing a home under this scheme. Rather than being critical of the Government’s activity and initiative in this area, it appears to me that we should be generous and give praise to the Government for operating in a fairly difficult arena at a time when finance generally is relatively short.

In the very short time allocated to me I want to touch on the second part of the Bill. Again, the Minister deserves congratulations because he has done the small things well. It has always appeared to me that in the final result great successes accrue from the small things, and I want to comment on some of those. The most important one, of course, is that fringe benefits are now to be made available to a lot more people than was the case previously. The person on a Service pension who now is in receipt of the 100 per cent general rate- that is, $44.10- will be able to get full fringe benefits. There are no restrictions; it is an open-ended commitment covering a wide range - telephone concessions, local government and State government concessions, and health care. These things will remove people’s fears. On far too few occasions do any of us take time off to pause and reflect on the worry that comes to people when they are faced with the threat of long periods in hospital, with huge medical bills to pay. It is bad enough to be sick, but that sickness is compounded by people’s fear that they will not have the finances to pay the accounts. The Minister has removed that fear.

Repatriation regulations as far as fringe benefits are concerned can be divided into two parts. The first deals with Service-related problems, which include dental services, repair and renewal of surgical aids, physiotherapy and optometrical services. Secondly, these services will be available for all conditions, whether Servicerelated or not, for the new classes of people who will receive fringe benefits, as outlined by the Minister in his second reading speech. It is good to see that the application of fringe benefits has been extended to mariners who were prisoners of war and to all veterans with Service-related amputations or loss of vision in one eye.

It is good that we have moved a long way from the early stages of the development of this country, when everyone had to look after himself. It is deplorable that even today in certain countries poor people have to look after themselves and that consequently great suffering and hardship occurs. So, in Australia we can be proud of the initiatives of successive governments. No government in isolation has achieved the care and attention that is given to elderly and unfortunate people. It has been an approach by all sides of the Parliament. It is true that some governments criticise other governments for not doing enough, but there has been a general agreement that we must help our handicapped and unfortunate people. I am glad that the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs was able to extend the umbrella of cover to those mariners and veterans with amputations and loss of vision.

The honourable member for Reid was also not generous enough to comment on what is, to my mind, an excellent innovation. I refer to temporary incapacity as a result of service related injuries. A person who is incapacitated for more than 28 days receives a special rate of pension at the totally and permanently incapacitated rate and, if this pension is refused to him, he has a right of appeal. That is an excellent initiative. Again, it is an expression of determination to remove the fears of people who unfortunately have a problem in regard to sickness or associated matters. That appears to me to be something on which we should all comment, and we should congratulate the Minister on being able to achieve that innovation which overcomes problem areas. I am very pleased that this initiative has been extended to those people who will become what we might call a new class of temporarily incapacitated people. I wish to point out the attention to detail in this legislation. It needs to be commented on because other honourable members have not. I am disappointed about that. I refer to the New Guinea natives. Many members of this Parliament are grateful for the assistance that was given to them by the New Guinea people during the Second World War.

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– They were the fuzzy-wuzzies

Mr McVEIGH:

– The honourable member for Hindmarsh refers to them as fuzzy-wuzzies. That is a term of endearment because of what they did. The Minister has now increased the pension payable to them. Australia is grateful to these people for what they did. We do remember; we have not forgotten them, nor has the Minister forgotten them in this new piece of legislation. It is good to see that an increase in pension has been given to them. Also indicative of the Government’s concern to cover the wide range of people’s problems is the fact that an increased clothing allowance is to be given to people who, unfortunately, damage their clothing because they are using surgical appliances. The people who need assistance are getting it. I fail to see how anyone can criticise the action of a government that is giving help where it is needed most - to the unfortunate. Wherever the problem is, it has to be examined and overcome.

A similar emphasis is shown in rotation to the orphan’s pension, which is a particular problem area. Assistance has been given. It would be wrong of me if I did not make a few complimentary remarks about the men of Legacy. These people - silent angels, as it were - help the sons and daughters of comrades no longer with us. They do not seek any great praise; their satisfaction is in doing the job that they promised someone they would do. We praise them. We realise that this action brings out the best in the Australian nation - government assistance, complemented by a heartfelt expression of gratitude, sacrifice and the use of personal financial resources by people such as those involved with Legacy. There is a special increase in the attendant’s allowance. No longer are people in certain situations able to look after themselves, and this legislation gives them an increased benefit. Once again, that indicates concern for giving assistance to people.

How upset, therefore, we on the Government side get when we find that the Press and the Opposition criticise the big things that the Government does but forgets about the little things. That is why I am delighted to be associated with this legislation, realising that we are doing the little things to help, knowing that the adding together of all those little things is better than one big thing. The other point that needs to be emphasised and itemised so that the people of Australia know, is that, in certain circumstances double amputees or combination amputees will have their car expenses increased this year to $528 per annum. Again, that is an increase to assist those people because the Government realises that there are increased costs associated with running a car.

The final point in the legislation involves education. There have been meaningful and significant increases in this area of need. I am proud to be associated with this legislation. It will not hit the headlines; it will not even be commented on in the Press. But, in the hearts and minds of the people who will benefit from it, it will be welcomed. They will remember with gratitude the fact that the Australian people, through the disbursement of the common taxation pool, are helping in the little things. They are freeing these people from worry so they can hold their heads high, secure in the knowledge that their fears have been removed. It would appear to me that one of the great challenges that faces the Australian nation is to remove from all Australians the fear that no one will look after them, that they will be left alone with no one to love them. After all, each and every one of us likes to be loved, just a little. Honourable members on this side of the Parliament even occasionally like to be loved by the Opposition.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. J. D. M. Dobie) - I now call the loving member for Capricornia.

Dr EVERINGHAM:
Capricornia

– The message of love is welcomed, but I do feel that these war veterans cannot live on love alone. Whilst I completely concur with the last speaker, the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh), that there is a sign of compassion and concern in some of the little things that have been given in this Bill which amends the Repatriation Act and the Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Act, there is a disappointing failure to take account of inflation. This theme was stressed by the Opposition in discussing the Social Services Amendment Bill. Although the Government stresses that it has increased spending in the social security area by 80 per cent, it is really only a 60 per cent increase when one deducts things that were not included before this Government came to power. I include the rebates on taxation which have been replaced by the family allowance from the Department of Social Security. One should allow also for such things as the increase in unemployment. One notes that, basically, these allowances have been increased mainly in election years and not in other years under this Government and under preceding governments of the same political colour.

Mr Adermann:

– They were increased last year, too.

Dr EVERINGHAM:

– I said that they had been increased mainly in election years. The increase for most of these allowances is of the order of half of the erosion of their value - that is, half the rate of inflation. I will not go into an analysis of all the kinds of allowances such as the attendance allowances, dependant’s allowances and so on. All these things have been documented for the Government by various service organisations, and the Government is well aware of the erosion of the value of these benefits in many areas. I draw attention to the amendment moved by the Opposition in the case of the Social Services Amendment Bill, the debate of which preceded the debate on the Repatriation Acts Amendment Bill. It deplored the failure to allow such things as increases in allowances for the’ children of pensioners and beneficiaries and double orphan pensions to compensate for increases in the consumer price index. The same applies to mothers’ and guardians’ allowances. Of course the Opposition would have liked to see some increase in the family allowance for low income families. An increase is precisely what the Opposition has proposed. It would help not only social security beneficiaries but also most of the families of veterans because it is related to means and to income.

The honourable member for Darling Downs deplored the fact that the honourable member for Reid (Mr Uren) did not refer to many of the little benefits, as he called them. In fairness, I point out that the honourable member for Reid confined his remarks to the Defence Service Homes Amendment Bill (No. 2), which we are debating cognately with the Repatriation Acts Amendment Bill. By devoting his speech to that topic the honourable member for Reid did not imply that he does not welcome the advances in benefits, no matter how modest, for veterans and their dependants. Indeed, the Opposition welcomes them. One of the points that the honourable member for Darling Downs said had not been mentioned by the honourable member for Reid was the reduction of 1 4 months to 1 0 months in the waiting time for defence service home loans. In fact, the honourable member for Reid did mention that point. Let us set the record straight with regard to that aspect. He pointed out also that although a record amount is being made available for the war service home loan that record amount is a drastically dwindling proportion of the loan that must be made available to the lower income families or even to the median income families to enable them to undertake payments on a house of median cost, particularly in New South Wales.

I will mention briefly some of the points contained in the Repatriation Acts Amendment Bill that I feel are to be welcomed and on which the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Mr Adermann) is to be congratulated. I agree with many of the priorities outlined in his speech. I agree that the exemption of half the disability pension from calculation in the means test for eligibility for fringe benefits is most welcome. I regret that the same sort of exemption was not extended for the remaining SO per cent of disability pensions that are still counted towards the means test for service pensions. The Australian Labor Party is committed to exempting the remaining 50 per cent of the disability pension from inclusion in the income which is used in assessing means-tested pensions. The last Labor Government exempted the first 50 per cent of the disability pension from inclusion in that means test.

The Opposition welcomes the extension of benefits to mariners. I think that the present Minister for Veterans’ Affairs said that merchant seamen have not been given as free a range of benefits as veterans who returned from a theatre of war because, among other things, they worked under award conditions, received award wages, award payments and so on. The conditions under which they served is a rather minor consideration. In many cases the vessels in which they served had less speed and less defence capability and their casualty rates were very high. They were subject to military direction as to where they served. I think that any concession we make to them is not too generous. I commend the inclusion of recognition of the fact that merchant seamen were captured and detained by the enemy and that some had amptuations or suffered loss of vision. I commend the extension of attendence allowances and so on. Various provisions consequential upon amendments to the Social Services exclude pay and allowances and gratuities paid to people in the emergency reserve forces for the purpose of the income test in respect of service pensions and soon.

Overall, I think that the Opposition’s main objection to the gradual erosion of the amount of money received in comparison to the rate of inflation is that none of these veterans is getting any younger and their needs are not getting any less. Their number is dwindling so that the overall commitment of the country eventually must dwindle, irrespective of how frequently we look at the increasing commitment to individuals because of their increasing incapacity. In a country where productivity is increasing and where national wealth is increasing, despite inflation, it is disappointing to see a government handing out increasing billions of dollars to the corporate sector but decreasing in real terms the benefits that are paid out on welfare, education, health and so on.

This is particularly important when it is realised that the country is now urging all young people - indeed the Government is embarking on a multi-million dollar advertising drive - to join the forces. We were told by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) that, since the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet forces, the world is closer to war than at any other time since World War II. He regards it as far more important than Vietnam. At one stage he even said that we could have a war within a matter of days or weeks. If the Government is genuine and honest about seeing that invasion as a threat why does it not use the most powerful argument to persuade young people to join the forces, namely, that the country is genuinely concerned to recognise that kind of service. If the Government is genuinely concerned, surely it should be updating all benefits and indexing them for inflation. When we listened to the Prime Minister during his last campaign speech say that he had taken pensions out of politics we were entitled to assume that he meant not just the basic pension payment but also the allowances and the benefits for dependants and for people with particular disabilities. This has not been done.

According to all measures of the poverty line, those with children on most benefits are now below the poverty line and the more children they have the further they are below the poverty line. These are the matters to which we draw the Government’s attention. I will not move an amendment along the lines of those moved by the Opposition to the Social Services Amendment Bill and to the Defence Service Homes Amendment Bill (No. 2). The Opposition’s sentiments in relation to the Repatriation Acts Amendment Bill are very similar to the sentiments expressed in the amendments moved to the other two Bills. The Opposition deplores the failure of the Government to index fully benefits to those who are most in need and who have a legitimate entitlement to the same living standards as existed when a Labor Government was in charge of the treasury bench.

Mr ADERMANN:
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs · Fisher · NCP/NP

– I thank honourable members for taking part in the debate on the Defence Service Homes Amendment Bill (No. 2) and the Repatriation Acts Amendment Bill. Of course we reject the amendment put forward by the honourable member for Reid (Mr Uren). He must have had his tongue in his cheek when he moved that amendment. He used the debate to range far and wide over the whole area of housing. Most of his comments were well wide of the provisions of the Defence Service Homes Amendment Bill. He is a gallant old soldier and I respect him for that but he has already been shot down in flames on those arguments by my colleague the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr Groom).

The honourable member for Reid made some comments to which I ought to give a response. For instance, he was critical of the waiting period for defence service homes loans; he said that it was too long. Nobody likes a waiting period. He said that it went up to 14 months and then dropped back to 10 months. I remind the honourable member that it was a Labor Government that instituted the waiting period in 1 974 or 1 975.

He did claim some increases in the defence service homes loan that were not instituted by the Labor Party, although some were. The first increase that he claimed for the Labor Government was made by the Liberal National Country Party Government. In 1974 the Labor Party increased the amount of the loan from $12,000 to $15,000. Possibly having felt that it had overreached its budget or possibly being worried about the demands that that loan generated, the next year the Labor Party instituted the waiting period. There was no waiting period before the Labor Party came to power. When the Opposition talks about so-called erosion, I advise the honourable member that the waiting period has been reduced to 10 months, which is less than that which applied when the Labor Government was in office. Certainly, there has been no erosion.

I take the honourable member for Reid to task for producing figures that I believe would not stand the test of close examination. An increase from $1 5,000 to $25,000 is a significant increase in the defence service homes loan. That increase was necessary for the very reasons that were proposed by the Opposition. The Government and the veterans know that the cost of housing has risen. The honourable member confined his remarks to Sydney, and I cannot comment very much on the cost of housing in that area. In the main, the size of the loan has restored the proportion the loan available bears relative to the cost of a house when compared with the situation when the maximum loan available was $15,000. The honourable member said that the veterans were alarmed, disturbed, annoyed and upset at this situation. I wish that he had been present at the Returned Services League Congress held in Canberra this week to hear the Government commended on a couple of occasions specifically and openly for what it has done in the area of defence service homes and on the very advantageous provisions in the Budget which affect veterans.

It is still a good loan. The honourable member for Reid said that there were not as many loan applications these days. There could be a number of reasons for that. One reason could be that more than 350,000 persons have been assisted under this scheme. That figure has been supplied to me by one of the officers of the Department. We do not have the exact numbers but I have been assured that more than that number have been assisted since the scheme was first introduced. It has been a good scheme and it still is a good one. In 1974, when the loan was increased from $12,000 to $15,000, the Government of the day made available that extra $3,000 at the ruling rate of interest that applied to housing loans at that time, which was 7i per cent. Now we have made available another $10,000 for veterans. The interest rate of 10 per cent is below the prevailing rate available today on housing loans. That means that the $25,000 is available at an average rate of about 7 per cent; so it is still a good scheme, one that is advantageous to veterans and one with which I know they are very pleased.

I was disappointed to hear the honourable member for Capricornia (Dr Everingham) say that the Government has failed to take account of inflation. The one thing that the veteran community has appreciated more than anything else has been the full indexation of basic repatriation pensions. That takes inflation into account. That gives the veterans a full insurance against inflation. I point out that that is full indexation and not discounted indexation as applies in the national wage case. It is the best insurance that the veterans have had and it is the one they most appreciate.

The honourable member spoke of the other benefits, particularly the ones spoken of by the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh), that apply to the most seriously disadvantaged veterans - the ones in greatest need and who need the attendance and clothing allowances. The honourable member said that we increase those benefits only in an election year. I reminded him as he spoke that they were increased last year, and we have built on those increases this year. A number of the things we were able to do in the Budget last year, we were able to increase, to develop and to advance this year, so it would be unfair to say that there had been an erosion of benefits. Indeed, those benefits have been reinforced and improved. Some of them are significant.

The honourable member made reference to the fringe benefits. The provision in this year’s Budget to disallow for income test purposes half of the disability pensions for fringe benefit eligibility -as has previously applied in relation to service pensions - will mean that many more people will be eligible for those fringe benefits. Consequently, it will help a lot more veterans. I know that that is something which has been sought by the RSL and veterans’ organisations and it is something they are very pleased about, just as they are pleased with our initiative in relation to the temporary incapacity allowance. Once again I am very pleased that we have been able to take that initiative because it helps the people who are in greatest need, the people who have a real need for treatment. I believe the advances have been significant in these areas.

The honourable member for Capricornia said that overall the commitment must eventually dwindle. I suppose if we were looking at the very long term situation, that might be so, but it is not so in the immediate future. The average age of veterans today is about 60 years, which means that apart from the permanent unemployability aspect, there will be an increasing number of veterans who will be eligible for a service pension. So there will be no dwindling in numbers in the immediate future; nor will there be any lessening in the demand for hospitals and treatment, because not only do the disabilities remain but also age exacerbates those disabilities and there will be an increasing rather than a decreasing need for that treatment. Apart from that aspect we have veterans from later conflicts who will also become eligible for pensions and benefits. So in the short term we do not see a dwindling in numbers; we see a continuing commitment. Apart from the effects of inflation and other influences such as indexation which will bring heavier demands on government in the Budget, a great number of people will be eligible for the benefits provided in the Budget. That commitment is one that this Government has accepted.

I think some of the remarks made by honourable members were uncharitable. The eligibility provisions and benefits made available under the repatriation system are generous when we compare those provided in repatriation systems in other parts of the world. That does not mean that our system is perfect. I am very pleased that the Government has been able to make these advances in the system. It is a system which I freely concede has been built up in a bipartisan manner. Successive governments have built up this system. It is a good, generous and fair system. I am very pleased to have had the privilege of being the Minister who, in the last Budget, was able to implement significant advances in some of these benefits and to build on those this year. I appreciate the public statements of the National President of the RSL and I appreciate the messages of appreciation that were passed on to the Government at the Congress because of the measures that we were able to take in this Budget.

Amendment negatived.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drummond)Order! Is it the wish of the House to proceed to the third reading forthwith?

Mr Adermann:

- Mr Deputy Speaker, before I move the third reading, may I have your indulgence to correct a statement I made? I said inadvertently that the $3,000 rise from $12,000 to $ 1 5,000 which occurred under the Labor Government was at the ruling housing interest rate at that time. I thought that that was so, but it was below that rate. It was a concessional rate, and I do not want to be uncharitable.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

Bill (on motion by Mr Adermann) read a third time.

page 1126

REPATRIATION ACTS AMENDMENT BILL 1980

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 27 August, on motion by Mr Groom:

That the Bill be now read a second lime,

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

Bill (on motion by Mr Adermann) read a third time.

page 1127

NATIONAL HEALTH AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 August, on motion by Mr MacKellar:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Mr MacKELLAR:
Minister for Health · Warringah · LP

- Mr Deputy Speaker, may I have your indulgence to suggest that the House has a general debate covering this Bill and the Health Insurance Amendment Bill 1980, as they are associated measures. Separate questions will, of course, be put on each of the Bills at the conclusion of the debate.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drummond)Order! Is it the wish of the House to have a general debate covering these two measures? There being no objection, I will allow that course to be followed.

Dr BLEWETT:
Bonython

– These two Bills, the National Health Amendment Bill and the Health Insurance Amendment Bill, represent the legislative implementation of those few and minimal changes in health policy revealed in the Budget. In the first four years of the Fraser Government we had rather frenetic convulsions in health policy. During 1980, under the present incumbent, we have had a year of procrastination in health policy; that is, a year of non-decision making in health policy. I suppose, given the mess made in the previous four years, we should be grateful that during 1980 very little has been done in the health field, and certainly nothing of significance. But one feels a bit like that character in the excellent Cook cartoon who, in commenting on the Budget, stated: ‘It’s just not the same without a new health scheme’. Nearly every Fraser Budget has contained a new national health scheme, so we cannot help feeling a bit deprived that in 1 980 we have not got a new health scheme. As I said earlier, in 1980 procrastination has been the characteristic of health policy.

The Bills we are dealing with tonight relate to that procrastination because they are stop-gaps designed to hide the accumulating problems in the health field. The provisions in these Bills, in addition to other provisions in the Budget, can be described as a series of plugs to fill the growing holes in health provision in this country, a papering over a crumbling facade. During this year, on every major issue in the health field procrastination has ruled. No decisions have yet been made on the report of the Ralph Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry Inquiry, although the Government has had it for a year. That is not quite fair; I should make an apology. There was one decision on the Ralph committee’s report- that firm, positive and deliberate decision on discounting of pharmaceutical benefits scheme items which lasted for 48 hours. On the evening of 19 August the Minister for Health (Mr MacKellar) and the Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr Lynch) - those resolute decision makers - told the nation that ‘legislation will be introduced to allow chemists to charge less than the $2.75 per PBS prescription if they wished’. There is the clear smack of firm government! The Ministers gave two reasons for that decision. The first was that it would allow chemists to provide benefits at a lower rate to clients and, in particular, to the disadvantaged and chronically ill. The Ministers stated:

In this regard the scheme would be similar to the medical benefits arrangements by which doctors are able to accept reduced fees for treating patients they identify as disadvantaged.

That reason was always specious. Pharmacists are no better than doctors at determining social disadvantage. Anyhow, no equitable benefits for the disadvantaged or the chronically ill could be assured. That would depend very much on where the disadvantaged lived, on their location, and not on the degree of their disadvantage. It might benefit some chronically ill and some disadvantaged people who live near a large chemist shop or a shop in a chain of stores but it would be unlikely to benefit those who were dependent on a small neighbourhood chemist. That was the first reason. It was specious, as I have said. The second reason was that the change would obviously encourage competition between retail pharmacies. That is all too true. Many small pharmacies, in all likelihood, would simply have gone to the wall as a result.

So that 48 hours later, on the evening of 21 December, the Minister for Health announced the abandonment of the proposal. I commiserate with him because his colleague seems to have disappeared after making the original decision. One might ask: Where was the Minister for Industry and Commerce who had participated in the original decision? The Minister for Health announced that the Government had decided to set aside action to allow chemists to discount prices for drugs covered by the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. So one of the very few decisions in health matters that this Minister has been able to make in 12 months disappears after 48 hours. The decision to abandon this scheme was covered in the most extraordinary gobbledegook - that means in pompous, official jargon - in which he tries to disguise this panic retreat, this abandonment of one of his very few decisions. His explanation was that in those 48 hours it had been put to the Government that such action could dramatically alter the structure of the pharmaceutical industry. That is a truly laughable explanation. This recommendation had been under consideration for 12 months - it is part of the recommendations of the Ralph Committee report. A decision is made to implement the recommendation, and 48 hours later it is abandoned on the grounds that it could dramatically alter the structure of the pharmaceutical industry. I think that kind of explanation is merely a confession of ministerial incompetence. Certainly, the experience seems to have scared the Minister from making any more decisions on the report of the Ralph Committee. He has found it safer to procrastinate until after the election. Thus, for 1980 we will get no further decisions on the Ralph Committee report.

There are no policy decisions about the accumulating problems in the hospital sector. For instance, in Melbourne it is now becoming clear that there is a growing in-patient waiting list at public hospitals particularly affecting the poorer sections of the community. The extraordinary thing is that over the last 1 2 to 1 5 months the bed availability in public hospitals has been static. This is why we are beginning to get these pressures mounting up. However, in private hospitals, which are not effectively controlled, there has been a 7 per cent increase in bed availability. But, of course, the private hospitals are not getting the patients. Increasingly, private hospitals are running into problems of viability. We have this extraordinary policy which is restricting the availability of public hospital beds and which is building up these waiting lists. At the same time, private hospitals have been increasing their bed numbers in a situation in which many of them are finding it increasingly difficult to retain viability. These issues need to be looked at. We need to have much more positive decisions in these fields.

Again, in relation to hospitals, we have the overcrowding of out-patient facilities, which is a marked and growing feature of the last 12 months in all the major public hospitals, at least those in the central city areas. Once again, we are getting no decisions in this field. Apparently, no policy decisions in this matter are possible until the Jamison Committee reports.

What about the growing disintegration of the health insurance system? I have never suggested that there is an avalanche of desertions from the health funds. The Opposition has suggested that there is a steady and almost certainly continuing erosion. One can see this in the Budget Papers. The Budget Papers point out:

The estimates also provide for some increase in the proportion of uninsured inpatients following the trend perceived by hospitals in 1979-80.

There is an expectation that the drop out rate from hospital insurance will continue. That is a bit coy and does not give us much in the way of specific details. Nevertheless, it admits a continuing erosion. Another sign, of course, is that there is in the Budget a 30 per cent increase in the cost of medical benefits for the disadvantaged, which is another sign of the failure of the private insurance system. There has been a very big increase in the provision made for medical benefits for treating the disadvantaged.

Yet in relation to the overall insurance scheme the Government does nothing. It does nothing because it dare not confess to the bankruptcy of its policies in this field on the eve of the election. It dare not introduce a fifth health scheme before an election because even for the Government that would be too much of a sick joke. It dare not confess what we all know, that there will have to be a totally new health scheme in 1981. It dare not canvass some of the unpopular techniques necessary to drive people back into the private health funds - for instance, the removal of the $20 universal benefit for all those who do not belong to the funds; charges and means tests in public hospitals and in the out-patient sectors of public hospitals. Because this Government dare not face these very difficult decisions it staves off the big decisions with the Bills that are now before the House. It puts in the few plugs to preserve the system for the next few months and adds a few sweeteners as a pretence for real concern over the disintegrating health care system in this country.

Let me deal specifically with the Bills. The Opposition welcomes the extension of the pensioner health benefit card to sickness beneficiaries and to supporting parents in the first six months although that second issue was not dealt with specifically in the two Bills before us. These decisions are supported by the Opposition. The Opposition has advocated these changes in the past few years. But even these minor reforms highlight the inconsistencies and inequities of the Government’s policies. As a result of these changes, the unemployed are now the only significant category of social security beneficiaries excluded from access to the pensioner health benefit card.

Whilst the Labor Party and, in my view, the Australian people, no longer consider that this Government is capable of any major reconstruction of the Australian health care system to ensure universality, fairness and simplicity, nevertheless, we believe that it might at least be consistent in small matters in terms of its own stated principles. On 27 November 1975 the Leader of this Government said: ‘We will be generous to those who cannot get a job and want to work’. I ask the Government and those on the government benches who have pretended concern for the unemployed during the last five years: Is it an example of Prime Ministerial generosity to discriminate in this way against the unemployed by leaving them as the only major social welfare beneficiaries not to receive the health benefit card? If honourable members read the Minister’s second reading speech they will see that it reeks with concern for the socially disadvantaged. Is the discrimination against the unemployed evidence of that concern which he expresses in his rhetoric? Moreover, the failure to include the unemployed becomes more inexplicable when one realises that the administrative hassles involved are very much the same as the administrative hassles involved in providing pensioner health benefit cards to temporary welfare recipients such as the sickness beneficiaries. They are in the same category in terms of temporary eligibility for the pensioner health benefit card. The administrative problem is the same for unemployed beneficiaries as it is for sickness beneficiaries. One can understand a difficulty there but, having faced up to it with sickness beneficiaries and overcome what is admittedly a difficult administrative problem - we are told that it had been overcome - a similar solution could have been applied to the unemployed. The cost of extending these provisions to the unemployed would not be particularly great, given that, on all the evidence we have, a great proportion of unemployed is already treated medically without charge under the admittedly invidious disadvantaged persons provisions. But on all we have been told, that provision has been widely used by the unemployed, and, therefore, the costs of this change are not great. The costs would be related mainly to the pharmaceutical field. Our estimate is that something like $5m would be involved in that field. Accordingly, I formally move the Opposition’s amendment, which relates specifically to that point. I move:

Secondly, the Opposition supports the inclusion of orthodontic treatment for cleft lip and cleft palate conditions in the medical benefits schedule. I would like to congratulate honourable members on both sides of the House who have argued in recent years for this change. I particularly mention Senator Susan Ryan, who has been very active in Canberra in pressing the Minister for these changes.

Thirdly, the Opposition supported the introduction of the Isolated Patients’ Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme when it was introduced two years ago. It was one of the very few imaginative initiatives in health care by this Government. We welcome its extension in the Bills before the House. Let me say at this point that the Labor Party increasingly realises that in pursuing a more egalitarian Australia we need to pay greater attention to inequities deriving from rural living. The final report of the Labor Party National Committee of Inquiry pointed out - and as Government members are very keen on quoting this report I am very happy to quote this passage which states the commitment we want to make in this field:

The party needs to recognise . . . that the pursuit of equality is highly relevant to eliminating inequalities between cities and countryside.

The Committee went on to recommend: that the reduction of inequalities in education, transport, housing, communications, health, welfare services and the general quality of life deriving from the great distances in regional Australia be given a high priority in policy considerations.

We therefore support the further relief provided for people who live in isolated areas and who must travel long distances to obtain specialist medical treatment. Finally, the Opposition welcomes, too, the increase in the domiciliary nursing care benefit from $2 a day to $3 a day. Indeed, on the afternoon of 1 9 August, that is, a few hours before the Budget was introduced, I called for the development of better home care services for the elderly and for more adequate domiciliary services and backup services so that the elderly could have a wider range of options. For once I must confess that it was certainly the most prompt response I have ever had from the Government. We therefore welcome this development.

Nevertheless, one must note that all these small measures, however much we approve of the particular measure in detail, are either sweetners to distract the electorate from the disintegrating health care system or are stop-gap measures to paper over the worst holes in the system itself. We have no new national health schemes but simply a papering over of the present creaking and collapsing scheme - a series of band-aids to keep together what is a shoddy and disintegrating scheme, to keep it from collapsing before the election. For instance, the provision of pensioner health benefit cards for supporting parents in the first six months and for sickness beneficiaries is a last minute effort to plug particular gaps that have arisen, because of the destruction of a comprehensive health care system in recent years. Indeed, the system of universal medical cover having been destroyed, holes are now appearing everywhere in what is a chaotic and an incomplete system.

Again, the stop-gap provisions in these Bills are on the same footing with the stop-gap measure in the Budget to increase the taxpayer subsidy to the private funds, through the hospital re-insurance pool, by some $75m - a 1 50 per cent increase in the taxpayer subsidy. The changes in these Bills are to plug gaps, just as the changes to the taxpayer subsidy to the re-insurance pool are aimed at plugging up the system for the next few months. When this proposal was introduced three months ago the Minister said that the decision to adjust the Commonwealth’s contribution to the Fund demonstrated the Government’s real concern for the aged and chronically ill.

For $44m, that is about half of that $75m, we could have provided pensioner health benefit cover to the 200,000 old age and invalid pensioners at present denied the pensioner health benefit card; that is, using part of that money, we could have made direct provision to support the old. Ultimately, we could have used the $75m directly to support the health needs of the identified chronically ill. Instead, we have this indirect, roundabout provision through the re-insurance pool. But of course the real reason for its introduction was not to help the old and the chronically ill; it was to keep down the contribution rates to the health funds in an election year. I suggest that anyone who doubts that should read Health Benefit Circular No. 148. In it there is no emphasis on the $75m helping the old and the chronically ill. There is merely the hard reality that the $75m of taxpayers’ money would enable the private funds to hold down family contribution rates by 50c a week. That is what the whole operation is about - not primarily helping the old and the chronically ill, but keeping down the contribution rates in an election year.

We in the Labor Party protest against the way in which the old and the chronically ill are shuffled around as a subterfuge by the Government to cover up its shabby operations. This Government and this Minister accused the Labor Party of not being concerned with the aged and the chronically ill in the provision of health care. Having destroyed a system of universal medical cover which did protect the aged and the chronically ill, these destroyers have the effrontery to say that the Labor Party is not concerned with the old and the chronically ill. Let me nail that canard right away. Firstly, the Labor Party will maintain every scheme, however gimcrack, of this Government designed to protect the old and the chronically ill until we have more satisfactory and efficient schemes to replace them. Secondly, we would be prepared to take immediate remedial action should any of our other policies have adverse consequences for the old or the chronically ill.

One hopes that these Bills represent the final health measures of the Fraser Government. Health has been among the sorriest sagas of this sorry Government. From the original broken pledge with the gutting of Medibank, through all the twists and convulsions of the Hunt period, to the ‘do nothing’ regime of MacKellar, the Government’s health policy has been marked by inconsistency, incompetence and evasion. Today we are faced with a disintegrating health system and a government which is intellectually bankrupt and incapable of solving the problem. That is not my assessment alone. I can bring evidence from the pharmaceutical societies, from the voluntary health funds and from the Australian Medical Association - none of them friends of the Labor Party, but all of whom agree with the analysis I have just presented. Let me take them up one by one. The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of New South Wales, on 19 August 1980, referred to ‘the Government’s dismal record in health care matters’. The President of the Voluntary Health Insurance Association, on 8 September 1980, said:

This Government’s policies have been short-term and made for budgetary and inflation consideration rather than as part of a health strategy.

The President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, on 21 August 1980, referred to ‘the bankruptcy of the Government’s thinking in the field of health care’. The President of the AMA, on 1 September 1979, said:

On past performance I have no great faith in the ability of the Labor Party to solve the problems of health care finance - That establishes his bona fides- but it would not be difficult for them to come up with some better answers than the present Federal Government has so far found.

We all know on both sides of this House and all the organisations concerned know that, as the President of the Voluntary Health Funds Association puts it, there will have to be ‘substantial changes rather than the piecemeal attempts so far’. I ask: What is this Government to do about the disintegrating health insurance system which now covers at best only a bare majority of the population? Is it to deny the Commonwealth benefit of more than $20 to all those who are not fund members, in an effort to force people back into the funds? Is it going to remove this last remnant of universality in order to resuscitate its crumbling schemes - is it going to permit no claim bonuses so that people can treat their bodies as they do their motor cars - the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of the free enterprise ethnic in health? The Government has jumped from one gimmick to another in health care. Is this gimmick to be the next? Again, is it going to introduce a means test for hospital services and reintroduce charges in the public hospital sector? Is this another of its solutions that it does not like to talk about before the elections?

The health care system of this country is going to have to be changed in the next 12 months. Australian people know both Labor’s specific answers in the first year and the direction in which we will move. Before the coming election, they deserve to be told in which direction this Government is going to move if of course this Government knows.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drummond:
FORREST, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Kerin:

– I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak later.

Mr LLOYD:
Murray

-It is fairly difficult to understand the reasoning of the honourable member for Bonython (Dr Blewett) who is the shadow Minister for Health. The honourable member was critical of the Government for making decisions and changes in relation to health matters in 1979. He is equally critical of the Government for not making changes in 1980. He is critical also because the Government did take some action in regard to the chemists of Australia. What does he want? Does he want the Government to make decisions or not make decisions? I wish he could make up his mind. I believe what it really means is that the shadow Minister is floundering around trying to make his mark and trying to make health an issue in the coming Federal election. He is being singularly unsuccessful in causing any ripple of excitment. If one looks at the indicators of what will be the features in this coming election, health is definitely not one of them. In other words, the shadow Minister has failed to make his mark.

Let us look at a few of the things to which the honourable member referred. He said that the number of private hospital beds was increasing and that this was a bad thing. Has he given any indication at any time of how a Federal Labor government would overcome this problem because that is a basic responsibility of States, including some States that are controlled by Labor governments. He talks of a disadvantaged category, a 30 per cent increase, and then declares it a failure. Surely the fact that this category is being used would entitle one to call it a success. If there had been no increase or a very small increase he would have still called it a failure because somehow or other the criteria would have been too difficult for it to be used.

Then the honourable member talked about the rising cost of the Government’s health scheme. What about the Labor alternative? What about kiddiebank - the scheme which would offer free care for those under 16 years of age, expectant mothers and so forth? That failed to cause any excitement or reaction in the electorate. Labor has had to amend already its prospective health policy for this coming election to the full reintroduction of that wonderful open-ended commitment - Medibank. How much will that cost the taxpayers of Australia? Will the cost be $ 1,000m additional? Has that cost been added to the additional costs to which Labor is already committed? If Labor is not going to reintroduce Medibank over the three-year period that it hopes to be in government, let it say so and we can go back to that great non-event - kiddiebank

What about the statement of the President of the Pharmaceutical Society of New South Wales of 19 August which he quoted with great glee? The honourable member failed significantly to quote those same pharmacy people several days later. What about the relations of the Labor Party with the pharmacists of Australia? The honourable member for Bonython probably was not very interested in health matters in 1975. But when the Labor Government lost office in 1975 the Pharmacy Guild of Australia was about to take the Labor Minister for Health and the Labor Government to court. That was the belief in the Labor Government that the Pharmacy Guild of Australia had at that time. If the honourable member checks the record he will find that what I have said is correct.

This enabling legislation is concerned with significant initiatives introduced by the Minister for Health (Mr MacKellar) which were announced in the recent Budget. They are initiatives which I believe have not received the publicity they deserved partly because the media and the Opposition have not understood their full implications, particularly in respect of the chronically disabled who do not meet the criteria for the invalid pension. In this respect I refer to the extension of the pensioner health benefit card or, if you like, fringe benefits to sickness beneficiaries. This is a most important extension because it overcomes the real problem of those who are chronically incapacitated. It means that in these difficult days of obtaining employment the fringe benefits will provide real security against additional medical costs. I believe in one stroke this overcomes this problem in a far more constructive and practical way than the Labor Party, with all its bleating on this issue, has managed to come up with. This is particularly so when this initiative is coupled with a new arrangement which I foreshadowed in the House less than two weeks ago. The Minister for Social Security (Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle) formally announced this arrangement in the Senate yesterday. The Minister in answer to a question headed ‘Social Security Appeals’ said:

It has now been decided that this right of appeal should be extended so that any person whose case has been reviewed by the social security appeals tribunal will have a further right of access to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in all cases in which the claim is not upheld by the Department, that is, whether the recommendation of the social security appeals tribunal was favourable or unfavourable.

In further answer to that question from Senator Walters the Minister indicated that for the first time social security appeals tribunals will be allowed to adjudicate on medical issues. This is a tremendously important step not only in terms of ensuring that justice is being done but also of ensuring that justice appears to be done in this difficult area of medical assessment.

I now turn to the Isolated Patients’ Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme. I believe that this scheme more than anything else in the health area demonstrates this Government’s concern for country people and the need for equity in health policy. We are told in the Minister’s second reading speech that 19,000 cases were approved last year and that this number will increase dramatically. I believe an important test of a government’s sincerity is its willingness to correct problems in the administration of a scheme as they arise. The previous Minister for Health, the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt), who introduced IPTAAS will always be recognised by country people as a Minister who has made some significant contribution to the better health of people in country areas. The Minister introduced several initiatives to correct anomalies that developed. I am pleased to see that the present Minister for Health (Mr MacKellar) has carried these corrections further. For the first time there will be only one total contribution of the first $20 of transport costs. This will represent a significant saving where a second person has to accompany a patient. Secondly, the overnight accommodation allowance is to be lifted from $15 to $20. Thirdly, a 12-month time lapse will be allowed for applications. Some other points are included in the legislation, including the right of appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

This to me once again distinguishes the difference between the Labor Party and the coalition parties - that is, action as distinct from rhetoric. The Labor Party in its policy in 1972, in 1975 and again tonight is saying that it has concern for the health of country people. Is the honourable member for Bonython aware that a rural health inquiry which was introduced with great gusto by the previous Labor Government recommended the introduction of the Isolated Patients’ Travel and Accommodation Scheme but that that recommendation was not acted upon by that Labor Government? So much for the Labor Party’s genuine concern for the health of country people as distinct from its rhetoric.

We then move on to the domiciliary nursing care benefit.

Mr Carlton:

– They do not want country people to remain well.

Mr LLOYD:

– I think that is a very well considered statement. The domiciliary nursing care benefit has been increased from $2 a day to $3 a day, which is certainly justified and needed. The increase follows, of course, the recent extension by this Government of the scheme from what was once an age and medical criteria - that is, people had to be over 65 years of age and had to be medically assessed - to a straight medical assessment for people over 16 years of age. Of course, those under 1 6 years of age are covered by the handicapped children’s allowance.

The other significant innovation is the introduction of an extension of medical benefits for those with cleft palates and cleft lips for othodontic treatment. The honourable member for Bonython also referred to recent statements by Labor politicians and said that these were significant in achieving that breakthrough. I remind him and the Labor Party generally that this has been a part of the coalition Government’s policy since the 1975 election, lt can be argued that it has taken a few years to implement - and I accept that - but I am very pleased that it has come. I do not want to hear any more rot about this being a bright Labor idea that the Government has latched on to because it was pioneered and introduced by the coalition parties when in Opposition before the 1975 elections. I support these amendments. I believe they are welcome, constructive initiatives in health policy in this country. Once again this shows the difference between the expensive rhetoric of the Labor Party and the constructive action of the Government.

Dr BLEWETT (Bonython)- Mr Deputy Speaker, I have been misrepresented.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar:

– Does the honourable member wish to make a personal explanation?

Dr BLEWETT:

– Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd) was unfair in his remarks in relation to cleft palates. I made the distinct point that members on both sides of the House deserved to be congratulated for the work they have done on this measure.

Mr KERIN:
Werriwa

– I support the amendment of the honourable member for Bonython (Dr Blewett) and fully back his comment that the measures before us are stopgap measures. I was fascinated by the complacency displayed by the honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd) when he said that health is not an election issue. I recognise that Murray is the second safest conservative seat in Australia and that therefore people may not be agitating about health there, but they certainly are in a lot of other electorates. I am surprised that the honourable member needs to attribute excitement to an issue before he sees it as an issue. We are not concerned about matters just because they are election issues. We are concerned because the system is in a mess and because Australians will eventually suffer greatly.

The honourable member for Murray took up a few other matters; for example, he asked what the Labor Party will do about rationalisation. We are simply saying that if there is to be a rationalisation of the public hospital system it is logical that there should be some rationalisation of the private hospital system. The honourable member also asked whether we intend a full re-introduction of Medibank. All that we have said is that we will move towards a system of universal health insurance to a system that will be universal, fair and simple. We also commented that the amount spent on disadvantaged persons is up by 30 per cent. The reason for mentioning that is that it shows the breakdown of the private health insurance system.

The health section of the Budget does nothing to solve the health problems and costs of the great majority of Australians! A few months ago even the Liberal Party’s Federal Council condemned the present health insurance system as costly, unwieldy and incomprehensible. The measures provided for in these bills which include the extension of the pensioner health benefit card to sickness and supporting parents; the extension of the medical benefits schedule to cover orthodontic treatment required by children with cleft palate conditions; an increase in the domiciliary nursing care benefit; and an easing of the burden for persons who live in isolated areas and who must travel for specialist medical treatment must be welcomed and are welcomed by the Australian Labor Party. However, the Government has again refused to tackle the difficult but major issues in health care.

There are some apparent increases in expenditure in the health sector after this Budget. However, the Australian health care system still remains one of the most inequitable in the Western world; certainly the most complex and chaotic. Most family men and women, not to mention single people, are looking at their health insurance bills on one hand and their doctors’ bills on the other, and wondering whether health insurance is worth it. Basic family medical and hospital contributions are too much for many families on and below the average wage. More serious, however, is that many more people are less inclined to go to the doctor, even when they are ill. Dr Nick Crofts of the Doctors Reform Society when speaking on Nationwide earlier this year, suggested that a reasonable sample of general practitioners had experienced a drop of 20 per cent to 30 per cent in consultations since 1 September last year. In areas where there are freely available free services near to public hospitals the decline has been even more noticeable.

The tragic situation we have at the moment is that health care is so expensive for most people - either health care or insurance or both - that people are prepared to put up with symptoms of illness rather than seek help at an early stage. People will go without regular checkups as well. So much for preventive medicine under this Government. It is a sad indictment of our society that due to prohibitive costs people - except for the wealthy- cannot afford to look after their own and their family’s health. The Fraser Government is the first in our history that has forced families to weigh up their health risks, to deprive themselves of health care until the last possible moment. We have a scenario whereby the Government is trying to force people into the funds by actions which at the same time are encouraging others out of the funds. The cost of health care is rising uncontrollably. People are forced to risk having no insurance, or inadequate insurance, because of financial considerations. The funds are facing financial problems of their own. Those Australians with no insurance encounter hostility from the system which is supposed to serve their health needs, and the whole mess is chaotic and complex. This Government has utterly disregarded the concept that health care should be a basic right and not a privilege.

The present situation does not merely reflect the abject failure of Government policy. It indicates growing chaos which this Government, for electoral reasons, seeks to ignore. This Bill just adds a few more sticks to the fire of confusion which the Government set up. True, the amendments are just and welcome but the totality is chaotic, expensive and inadequate. This Government has constantly moved towards shedding responsibility for health care ever since it gained office. Despite the fact that the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) promised to maintain Medibank in 1975, this Government has displayed the traditional conservative preoccupation with matters of fiscal prudence and a reduction in the role of government in regard to health. Budgeted health expenditure although rising by 1 5 per cent is only level pegging as a proportion of overall Budget outlays. The chief reasons for the 15 per cent rise were the $75m increase in the Commonwealth contribution to the reinsurance pool and the $86m rise in assistance and benefits to nursing homes. Most Australians are still faced with the uncertainty and cost of health insurance following the Budget. The injection of $75m into the reinsurance pool is ostensibly to help the chronically ill. In reality it is designed to prevent fund rate rises before the election. In November this year doctors’ fees will increase by about 9.7 per cent.

Strong popular protest against contemplated cuts in community health initiatives such as community health centres has prevented these cuts. Although the Government has only maintained its real level of funding, the community health program’s share of health expenditure is still down on 1975-76 levels and at 2 per cent of the total budget is still way below the expenditure levels of more costly forms of primary health care. As I have mentioned, the extension of the pharmaceutical health benefit card to supporting parents in the first six months, sickness beneficiaries and certain veterans is welcomed by the Labor Party. However, these extensions demonstrate further the discrimination against the unemployed, who are not eligible for the pensioner health benefit card; hence our amendment. An across the board increase of 20c per item to be paid to drug manufacturers and wholesalers is excessive and approximately twice the increase recommended as necessary and desirable by the Ralph Committee. The ad hoc way in which this Government makes decisions regarding health was demonstrated by the 48-hour change of mind regarding the discounting for chemists. Due to strong lobbying by the Guild of Chemists the Budget decision was reversed.

There has been a distinct explosion in nursing home benefits and assistance - an increase of $87m over 1979-80. This explosion is likely to continue in 1981-82 because of bed approvals in the pipeline. The nursing home sector must be controlled and there is a definite need to develop and support alternative home-based forms of care for the elderly. It is estimated that up to 25 per cent of nursing home patients could be treated at home if appropriate facilities were available. The increases in the domiciliary nursing care benefit and the increased subsidy for home nursing services must be applauded. However, these increases are minuscule - 0.9 per cent- compared to the money spent on nursing home benefits which was 12. 1 per cent of the health budget. Pensioners have gained nothing from Budget decisions. The Government’s injection of funds into the reinsurance pool is simply a subsidy to the funds so that they can keep their contribution rates down. The Government has not really given anything directly to the old and the chronically ill.

Hospital funding increased in Budget allocations. However, the Minister warned there could be further changes with the receipt of the report of the Jamison Committee of Inquiry into the’ efficiency and administration of hospitals. Again the Government implements ad hoc measures and puts off difficult decisions. Coherent health policy is something this Government knows nothing about. It is all very well to patch up bits and pieces of the system in the hope that eventually market forces will sort the whole system out. That will not happen. The present health care system, if one can call it that, can only worsen in efficiency and the people will suffer. There have been four major health care schemes in five years - schemes with no sequential consistency. A Labor Government will remove the complexity and inequity of the present scheme. The first step towards universal, fair health insurance will be to provide full medical cover for all children under 16, all dependent children over 16, and all expectant mothers.

Debate interrupted.

page 1134

ADJOURNMENT

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar)Order! It being 10.30 p.m., I propose the question:

That the House do now adjourn.

Question resolved in the negative.

page 1135

NATIONAL HEALTH AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

Mr KERIN:
Werriwa

– It was with concern for the Australian family and with the plight of the needy and underprivileged in mind that the Australian Labor Party devised its policies. The Labor Party will also maintain Commonwealth payment of all medical costs over$20; maintain and expand the existing pensioner health provisions by widening the eligibility for the pensioner health benefit card; provide by right and not on the basis of arbitrary decisions by doctors full medical coverage for the unemployed; and there will be no direct charge from a doctor to an eligible patient to use the bulk billing system at the schedule fee level.

These measures will be only the beginning of the transformation of a complex, inequitable and inefficient system. When the Labor Party gains power, and only then, will health achieve its appropriate priority. Only when Labor’s family health care plan is implemented will the present chaos and suffering be done away with. The ALP plan for health insurance will bring direct and tangible benefits to six million Australians.

Amendment negatived.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

Bill (on motion by Mr MacKellar) read a third time.

page 1135

HEALTH INSURANCE AMENDMENT BILL 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 August, on motion by Mr MacKellar:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

In Committee

The Bill.

Mr MacKELLAR:
Minister for Health · Warringah · LP

– I move:

After clause 4, page 2, insert the following clause:

Panels for appointments to Committees “4a. (1) Section50 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting paragraph (d) of sub-section (1) and substituting the following paragraph: “(d) the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; and”.

Where there was, immediately before the commencement of this section, a member of a Committee who was appointed from a panel nominated by the body referred to in paragraph SO (I) (d) of the Principal Act, then, for the purposes of the operation of Sections S3 and 56 of the Principal Act as amended by this Act, the member shall be deemed to have been appointed from a panel nominated by the body referred to in paragraph50 (1) (d) of the Principal Act as amended by this Act.

Under the Health Insurance Act 1973, where a medical practitioner has been recognised as a consultant physician or specialist for the purposes of the Act medical benefits are payable at specialist rates in respect of certain services, specified in the medical benefits schedule, rendered by him in the practice of his specialty to patients referred to him. Medical benefits in respect of services rendered by medical practitioners who are not so recognised are payable at lower rates. Section 48 of the principal Act provides for the establishment of a specialist recognition advisory committee for each State and Territory. These committees make recommendations to the Minister for Health on references made by him concerning whether a medical practitioner should, having regard to qualifications, experience and standing in the medical profession and the nature of his practice, be recognised for the purposes of the Act as a consultant physician or specialist. A practitioner may appeal to the Specialist Recognition Appeal Committee, established under section 49 of the Act, against a decision of the Minister made in accordance with an advisory committee’s recommendationnot to grant recognition.

The Act provides for five professional bodies, specified in section 50 of the Act, each to nominate a panel of names of medical practitioners for consideration for appointments to advisory committees and to the Appeal Committee. One body specified is the Australian Council of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. This body has been dissolved and the nominating body is now to be the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The proposed amendment to the Health Insurance Amendment Bill 1980, by sub-clause 4A (1), substitutes in section 50 of the Act the name of the new body. In addition, the amendment provides for the insertion into the Bill of a transitional provision, sub-clause 4A (2), for the purposes of sections 53 and 56 of the principal Act.

Section 53 of the Act provides for the appointment of a person by the Minister to act in the place of a member during a temporary absence. Section 56 provides for the filling of a vacancy in the office of a member. Both sections require consultation by the Minister with the body by whom the absent or previous member was nominated. Sub-clause 42A (2) will enable the Minister to consult with the new body regarding an appointment in respect of a temporary absence or vacancy where the absent or previous member was nominated by the defunct body. Without this transitional arrangement temporary appointments and appointments to fill vacancies could not be made in the circumstances to which I have referred. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

Dr BLEWETT:
Bonython

– As I received the amendments only five minutes ago it is a little difficult to make a judgment on them, but if the Minister for Health (Mr MacKellar) assures me that they are as innocuous as they seem, I am quite happy.

Amendment agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with an amendment; report - by leave - adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Mr MacKellar) - by leave - read a third time.

page 1136

ADJOURNMENT

Telecom: Telephone Accounts - The Baha’i Community - Chrysotile Corporation of Australia Pty Ltd: Export Grants - International Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources: Tasmania - Chile

Motion (by Mr MacKellar) proposed:

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr Les McMahon:
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– Tonight I wish to raise some matters in connection with Telecom Australia. I realise that the days of the Minister for Post and Telecommunications (Mr Staley) are numbered in this House, and therefore I feel that this is an opportune time for him to answer some of the many complaints regarding the running of Telecom. He may be sympathetic, but the issues I wish to raise concern ordinary working people and pensioners. Their wages or pensions are all they get, so they have to worry about their telephone bills. Many of my constituents are worried about their telephone bills. More than that, they are frustrated because when they complain to Telecom about their bills their complaints are duly investigated but the answer is always the same: The machine does not make or has not made a mistake. I have made a number of representations on behalf of my constituents, but the answer is always the same. It seems that Telecom is never wrong. Members of this House as well as senators have made representations on behalf of constituents on this matter. Although I appreciate that Telecom places more faith in its call recording machine than in the records of its customers, I do think that under the present method of metering people have cause for complaint. If they oppose or question the amount of their bills, it generally does not have any effect.

It has been fairly widely reported in the media that the metering equipment of Telecom can be subject to a number of faults. People are aware of this. It is no wonder that they become frustrated when Telecom overrides their assessment of their telephone bills. I make it quite clear that I am not saying that Telecom’s clients are always right, but neither am I prepared to take the attitude of Telecom - that is, that it is always right. It is too easy now for Telecom to attribute every increase, small or large, to the usage of subscriber trunk dialling facilities.

Far too often the complaints of clients of Telecom are overlooked by the simple statement that the customer has made use of STD facilities. How does Telecom know this? Telecom does not know that unless a meter which registers numbers called is put on the phone. The present ordinary system of metering does not indicate whether a call has been a local or STD call, nor does it register the duration of the call. Yet, customers are expected to fork out big money for the hire of the Telecom service and even more enormous amounts for call charges. How is it that when a customer’s bill is incredibly different from the normal bill, but the circumstances are the same, Telecom can still say that the bill is accurate?

I have had several cases like this brought to my attention by constituents. In particular I would like to raise one of those cases tonight. A husband and his wife, who are constituents of mine, both work and have access to telephones at their place of work. Their normal home telephone registration is two to three calls a day. This has been verified by Telecom. However, in one four week period their metered calls were estimated to be 382 calls, an average of 12.3 calls a day. This is a massive increase in anybody’s language - except, apparently, Telecom’s. Whilst the Telecom investigator agreed that this massive call increase was both out of the ordinary and puzzling, Telecom’s final reply to my representation was that its sympathetic re-examination of its metering detected no fault. Therefore, the account was not reduced.

These people to whom I have referred are not stupid. They are not habitual complainers but ordinary, honest people who were astounded when they received an extraordinary telephone account. Following Telecom’s final reply they paid their bill, but they were convinced that they had been robbed by Telecom. Fortunately, both these people work and they were able to afford the payment of their bill. But, what about those who do not work, including the pensioners, especially those who are aged and invalid, who rely on the telephone as their emergency or even day to day contact with the world? How do these people pay extraordinary bills? A number of them do not pay, because they cannot. So, their lifeline to society is cut. Of course we all expect to pay for the service Telecom provides, but we expect to pay a reasonable amount according to our use of the service. We do not expect to pay for faults which exist in Telecom’s service. The profits of Telecom are high, and they are healthy. This is a good thing and nobody would attempt to deny that. But, it is not good when people begin to see these profits arising out of overcharging on telephone accounts. Many citizens are beginning to believe this. Surely this is not good for Telecom’s image. Certainly it is not good for the image of the retiring Minister for Post and Telecommunications.

I have been informed that the service provided by Telecom has one of the highest standards in the world. I am proud that our telephone service has such a high standard. However, I think its standards would be raised even higher if it could provide more customer satisfaction. The old saying that the customer is always right certainly does not apply to Telecom. I feel that in the interests of good customer relationships it is necessary for Telecom to introduce some sort of metering system which can assess where calls are made to and, in the case of STD calls, the duration of the call. In this way Telecom would have facts to back up its account estimates and the customers also would have something on which to base their arguments. Until that time we will continue to have this situation.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr CARLTON:
Mackellar

– Tonight I want to raise the serious question of persecution of the adherents of the Baha’i faith in Iran. Honourable members may not be aware of the origins and nature of the Baha’i faith. It arose in Persia - now Iran - in the middle of the nineteenth century. Its name, Baha’i, comes from the founder, Baha’u’llah and simply means ‘a follower of Baha’u’llah’. It is an independent world religion, and some of its basic principles are the oneness of mankind, independent investigation of truth, the common foundation of all religions, the essential harmony of science and religion, the equality of men and women, the elimination of prejudices of all kinds, universal compulsory education, a spiritual solution of economic problems, a universal auxiliary language and universal peace.

In the brief space of 136 years the Baha’is have established themselves throughout the world. In Australia they have built a house of worship of unique structural design at Ingleside, Sydney, which is within the electorate of Mackellar. It is a landmark visible for many kilometres to those travelling to the northern beaches, either from the city or from St Ives. The Baha’is are gentle people whose tolerant and uplifting faith was first described to me by the world famous baritone, Mr Norman Bailey, who came to Australia to sing with the Australian Opera a few years ago. By coincidence, I subsequently represented the electorate within which the Baha’is have built their house of worship, and I have come to know them better since then.

The Baha’i religion was born in the predominantly Muslim environment of Iran. Its relationship to Islam is similar to that which exists between Christianity and Judaism, being born into the earlier environment but quite independent from it. The current anguish of the Baha’is stems from the fierce persecution of 200,000 of their number resident in Iran by the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Baha’is have been falsely accused of being tools of the previous regime, agents of American imperialism or international zionism and of corrupting and destroying Islam. These charges are ludicrous. Many Baha’is have been imprisoned without charges being laid against them and are still in custody, in many cases without their friends and relatives knowing where they are. All of the Baha’i holy places, properties, community centres and companies have been confiscated. The House of the Bab in Shiraz, the holiest centre in Iran for Baha’is throughout the world, has been razed. More recently there have been reports of executions of Baha’is and widespread dismissals from government positions.

Despite world-wide protest to the Iranian authorities, the persecution goes on. I ask all honourable members to add their voices to this protest, and I advise that tomorrow I shall place on the Notice Paper a motion of support for the Baha’i community in its efforts to secure justice for its number in Iran. I conclude with a quotation from Abdu’l-Baha, the eldest son of the founder of Baha’i, who said: . . .religion must be the cause of unity, harmony and agreement among mankind. If it be the cause of discord and hostility, if it leads to separation and creates conflict, the absence of religion would be preferable in the world.

I commend these words to the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers.

Mr Les Johnson:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– Today I addressed a question without notice to the Acting Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Resources (Mr Anthony) about the Chrysotile Corporation of Australia Pty Ltd and its eligibility to receive an export grant. This corporation is solely engaged in the production and export of asbestos. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Woodsreef Mines Ltd. It is worth noting that the company carries out its operations in the electorate of New England. Official records show that for the year 1978-79 the Chrysotile Corporation picked up the handsome sum of $395,673 as an export grant. What a godsend this must have been to a company that has been in financial difficulties for the last seven years. Records show that the company is still receiving the export grant. Even a cursory reading of the departmental document Export Incentives- a Guide to Benefits’ shows clearly that asbestos is not eligible for an export expansion grant. However, it appears that the Acting Prime Minister thinks otherwise.

After Question Time today he sought the indulgence of the House to answer the question I had put to him earlier in the day. In the course of his statement he said that, initially, the Export Development Grants Board regarded the asbestos exported by the Corporation as being ineligible for a grant. From a reading of the Export Market Development Grants Act and after considering recent decisions taken by the Board, that is the only reasonable conclusion that could be reached. However, the Minister claims that the company made representations, that advice was sought from the Bureau of Mineral Resources and that the original decision of the Board was overturned. We are yet to see evidence of this official decision. In the absence of any documentary evidence, I wish to quote some of the known facts about this matter. First, there is a statement from the shipping manager at Barraba, where the Chrysotile Corporation conducts its operations. Yesterday, he said:

We only sell the raw fibre milled from rock.

Secondly, there is a statement from an officer of James Hardie Co. Pty Ltd, a company engaged in the manufacture of asbestos products. He said that it regards raw and milled asbestos as ‘one and the same’. These assessments are different from the official view on which the Acting Prime Minister is relying. Not only are these assessments from people intimately associated with the asbestos industry at variance with the course taken by the board they are also at variance with the decisions taken with regard to the eligibility of other export products which are not eligible for the grant. Let me mention just a few: Tallow of sheep and cattle, woodchips, unwrought aluminium, unrefined copper and unrefined lead. Surely, each of these commodities is subject to a minimum amount of processing before being exported but is still regarded as ineligible.

Yet the Deputy Prime Minister claimed after Question Time today that there had been a change in the asbestos exported by Chrysotile because of the refining through milling of the product. It is a subtlety which has escaped the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which claims through its export statistics publications that the product which the Board now claims is eligible for a grant is the same product which is listed as not eligible in its official publication. The question which arises is: Why has the Government adopted a double standard with respect to asbestos? Once again let me remind honourable members that the beneficiary of the export grant is located in the electorate of New England. The Government has offered a loan of up to $1 .4m to assist in maintaining operations at the asbestos mine at Barraba. It should also be remembered that on 12 October 1978 the Government, through the Deputy Prime Minister, accepted the official advice of the Industries Assistance Commission against giving assistance to the production of asbestos in Australia. Within 12 days this official advice had been reversed.

The company has been under receivership since November 1973. The Commercial Bank of Australia has funded operational losses ever since. We all know of the close connections between the National Country Party and this organisation. If the Government had not announced its intention to bail out Woodsreef to the extent of $1.4m the CBA would have incurred substantial losses. Obviously it was in the interests of the Government to ensure that all efforts were made to protect the interests of the CBA in this matter even if it meant bending the rules on export development grants. The Export Development Grants Board is a statutory body responsible directly to this Parliament. I think it is clear from the evidence that its operations have been subverted for reasons beyond the Board’s statutory scope - in fact, for political considerations. For that reason this Parliament is entitled to a full explanation on this matter from the Board and the responsible Minister, who happens to be the Deputy Prime Minister. I believe- he should table all relevant documents about this matter.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr HODGMAN:
Denison

– Tomorrow is 1 1 September 1980- an historic day for Australia, for international management of the resources of Antarctica and for mankind. Tomorrow morning in this very building Australia will be the first nation formally to sign the new International Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. I am pleased to inform the House that I have been honoured with an invitation to be present at the official and formal signing ceremony. For me it represents the culmination of a three-year campaign to bring not only to Tasmania but also to Australia the world headquarters of the proposed International Antarctic Commission. For Australia it represents two historic firsts. This is the very first international treaty or convention in the world where the Convention nations have made a unanimous decision - it was made in April this year - that Australia shall be the host nation and shall provide the Convention facilities. I acknowledge the presence in the chamber this evening of the honourable member for Hawker (Mr Jacobi), who was one of our parliamentary delegates at the Convention.

Mr Baillieu:

– So was I.

Mr HODGMAN:

– The honourable member for La Trobe also was at the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources at which a unanimous decision was made that Australia would be the host nation. I again thank the Government - I have thanked it previously- for nominating Australia as the host nation. I thank the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) for deciding that if Australia became the host nation Hobart would be nominated as the host city for the world headquarters of the International Antarctic Commission.

It is also an historic first for Australia in that this is the first time that Australia has been the first nation to sign any international treaty or convention. I repeat that because I think the point needs to sink in. This is the very first time that an international convention or treaty involving 15 nations - indeed, one could say it probably involved the top 15 nations - has been signed first by Australia.

Tomorrow in this building the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Peacock), and the Minister for Science and the Environment (Mr Thomson), by Executive Council minute, will represent Australia and will sign the Convention. The ceremony will be witnessed by the ambassadors and high commissioners of all the other Antarctic Treaty nations. I think the fact that the top diplomats in Australia will be representing those Antarctic Treaty nations is a very clear indication of the historic significance of tomorrow’s formal signing ceremony.

Tomorrow’s ceremony will be followed by two important actions which have been brought about by the Federal Government. The first is the preparation and early introduction of the necessary legislation to enable Australia to ratify the Convention speedily. Once Australia has ratified the Convention the situation will be that when seven other nations also have ratified the Convention it will automatically come into effect. Article 16 of the Convention provides that the world headquarters of the International Antarctic Commission will be based in Hobart. I say - I do not say it lightly - that within 20 years Hobart in Tasmania will be the Geneva of the southern hemisphere. We are on the map internationally and the placing of the headquarters for this Commission at Hobart is of world-wide significance.

I am delighted also with the announcement today that a full convention of all the Antarctic Treaty nations will be held in Australia early next year as a necessary pre-requisite to setting up the world headquarters. It will involve an investment of millions of dollars and, in the ultimate, an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. I am proud of the fact that this Government and this Parliament have played such a leading role in the arrangements for the establishment of the Convention and in the historic event tomorrow of its formal signing. It is a happy day for Australia and it is a very happy day for Tasmania.

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– I draw attention to the fact that tomorrow, 11 September, is the seventh anniversary of the overthrow of the Government of Chile of Dr Allende and the institution of one of the most brutal military regimes in modern world history. Even in the bloodstained history of Latin America I think the Pinochet regime has been particularly oppressive. One of the tragedies I think is that in South America there have been only two republics where there has been a long and continuous history of democratic practice. Those two countries have been Chile and Uruguay. Without exception over a long period, I think for about a century, they had the progression of free elections with an alternation between one party and another.

In the last seven years we have seen a perversion of all that Chilean democratic history has meant. Now, of course, it is worth remembering that there has been a decision by the Government of General Pinochet that it will allow elections sometime towards the end of the 1980s and that it will allow a presidential election in 1989. The people of Chile will have to wait another decade before they will be able to exercise the kind of rights that they took for granted for a century.

More than 2,500 people have disappeared without trace. The whole concept of people disappearing without trace is something that one might have thought ought to be relegated to the period of Hitler and Stalin. Of course, we are not seeing it only in South America; we are seeing it also in many areas in Asia and in Africa. I think we need to remember that we must continue to preserve our rights in Australia but we must also continue to speak out very firmly and very strongly against all forms of tyranny whether they are of the Left or of the Right. There has been a marked silence on the part of this Government to talk about Pinochet’s regime in Chile.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar)Order! It being 1 1 p.m., the debate is interrupted. The House stands adjourned until 10.30 a.m. tomorrow.

House adjourned at 1 1 p.m.

page 1140

NOTICES

Mr Howard to present a Bill for an Act to grant financial assistance to Queensland.

Mr Nixon to present a Bill for an Act to establish an Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation, and for related purposes.

Mr Nixon to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Wine Grapes Levy Act 1979.

Mr Nixon to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Wine Research Act 1955.

page 1140

PAPERS

The following papers were deemed to have been presented on 10 September 1980, pursuant to statute:

Australian Bureau of Statistics Act - Australian Bureau of Statistics- Proposals for collection of information- 1 980-

No. 3- Survey of labour costs 1 980-8 1 .

No. 4 - Annual census and quarterly survey of oil shale exploration.

No. 5 - New topic to be included in the population survey, November 1980.

No. 6 - New survey of energy research and experimental development (R&D).

page 1141

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

The following answers to questions were circulated:

Delivery of Telegrams (Question No. 4787)

Mr Innes:

asked the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, upon notice, on 9 October 1979:

  1. Are phonogram operators and/or other Telecom Australia staff handling telegrams instructed to always ask the client whether or not they desire delivery of that telegram by messenger or by phone; if not, are they instructed not to ask.
  2. If phonogram operators and/or other Telecom staff handling telegram messages from the public are instructed not to ask clients whether or not they desire the delivery of their telegram by messenger delivery or by telephone, is the result of this the quoting of a delivery-by-messenger price; if not, what is the result.
  3. If the practice referred to in part (2) occurs, does it result in telegrams being charged at the messenger delivery rate, whereas Telecom actually telephones the telegram to the receiver if at all possible.
Mr Staley:
Minister for Post and Telecommunications · CHISHOLM, VICTORIA · LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. to (3) Under the existing public telegram charging basis, which has been in operation now for some 1 2 months, there is no messenger delivery rate. The basis of charging is related to the type of address used. Telegrams addressed to a telephone or telex number are charged at a lower rate than those with a home or business address. Telegrams addressed in the latter fashion are accepted on the basis that they will be delivered by the fastest means practicable, which in some cases, could be by telephone or telex. Nevertheless, if the sender or addressee specifically requests messenger delivery, those wishes are met if practicable.

Telegram accepting staff do not query senders as to the means of delivery required because: it would add to the handling time and costs on each message; the questioning of customers on all messages lodged would not be helpful to those who are aware of the charging arrangements or who know that the address is, say, not a telephone or telex subscriber; the telegram form handed in at Telegraph Offices prominently displays this information; a similar practice is not followed in regard to manually booked trunk telephone calls to STD destinations.

Telecom Australia: Television Studios (Question No. 5268)

Mr Burr:
WILMOT, TASMANIA

asked the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, upon notice, on 19 February 1980:

  1. Does Telecom Australia have a fully equipped television studio at Kingsway, South Melbourne.
  2. What was the cost of establishing and equipping the studio.
  3. Does Telecom have other television studios in other parts of Australia; if so, what was their cost.
  4. For what purpose is the television studio at South Melbourne used.
  5. Could the Australian Broadcasting Commission or commercial television studios be used for the work presently conducted in the Telecom studio; if not, why not.
  6. What was the average number of hours per week that the studio was used during 1 978-79.
  7. Is the studio hired out for contract work; if so, how many hours was it contracted during 1978-79.
  8. What charges were made.
  9. How do these charges compare with other commercial contract charges.
Mr Staley:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Yes.
  2. $690,000.
  3. No.
  4. For preparation of video cassettes, slides, films, etc, for internal purposes in Telecom Australia such as:

Staff Training

Staff Development

Information to staff

Customer education

Public Relations

Media Training of staff

  1. The Australian Broadcasting Commission and Commercial Television Studios are not normally available when required by Telecom Australia to meet its specific needs.
  2. Studio installation was completed during September 1978. Over the next 10 months, on average, it was used for 12 hours per week. During 1979-80, as expected, production work increased and the facilities were used, on average, for approximately 29 hours per week.
  3. The studio was hired out on 2 occasions in 1978-79 to assist private enterprises for 7 and 8 hours respectively.
  4. Charges were $245 and $930 and covered directly incurred costs involved.
  5. For the specific facilities required on these two occasions, the charges are believed to be comparable to those made by commercial organisations for similar facilities. Telecom’s facilities have not since been made available for commercial purposes. As indicated in (8) above Telecom’s charges related directly to incurred costs.

Domestic Communications Satellite (Question No. 5355)

Mr Innes:

asked the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, upon notice, on 19 February 1980:

  1. 1 ) Did the report of the Domestic Communication Satellite Working Group state that Telecom Australia is anxious that the introduction of a satellite will not be a factor causing an increase in basic telephone charges as the average customer would obtain little if any benefit.
  2. If so, will he assure the House of Representatives that the introduction of a satellite will not result in higher telephone charges.
Mr Staley:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Yes, the Working Group did state the same on page 16 of their report.
  2. There is no intrinsic reason why the introduction of an Australian satellite should result in higher telephone charges.

Productivity: Galbally Report (Question No. 5635)

Dr Cass:

asked the Minister for Productivity, upon notice, on 6 March 1980:

  1. At what stage of (a) development and (b) implementation are the following recommendations made by the Galbally report: 21 and 36 for which his Department is responsible.
  2. What sum has been spent specifically on each of the recommendations in part (1) in (a) each financial year since acceptance of the report and (b) the period 1 July to 31 December 1979.
  3. How much of the funds recommended in the report for expenditure on each of the recommendations within his portfolio has been spent on (a) refugee settlement, (b) refugee programs, (c) refugee organisations, (d) other organisations supporting refugees and (e) employment of staff to help with refugee settlement in (i) each financial year since the report was accepted and (ii) the period 1 July to 31 December 1979.
  4. What happens to funds allocated for the implementation of any recommendation, but not spent, in a specific financial year.
  5. What (a) specific skills and (b) experiences are required of the persons employed on the implementation of the report in dealing with the specific needs of the ethnic communities.
  6. What percentage of those employees are from the (a) Italian, (b) Greek, (c) Yugoslav and (d) Arabic ethnic groups and at what level are they employed.
  7. What mechanisms of (a) consultation and (b) coordination exist between his Department and the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs.
  8. What (a) funds have been provided over and above the recommendations in the report and (b) new programs have been initiated by his Department in order to implement the spirit of the report.
Mr Newman:
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister in Federal Affairs · BASS, TASMANIA · LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

I refer the honourable member to the reply given by the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs to question upon notice No. 5637 (House of Representatives Hansard, 20 August 1980, pp. 559-560).

Post and Telecommunications: Computing Equipment (Question No. 5854)

Mr Uren:

asked the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, upon notice, on 2 April 1980:

What is the total of computing equipment (1) rentals and (2) purchases made by (a) Telecom Australia and (b) Australia Post since 1974-75.

Mr Staley:
LP

-The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Since 1 July 1975 to 30 June 1980 Telecom Australia (I) has rented computing equipment at a cost of S4,458,796 and (2) has purchased computing equipment at a cost of 114,496,024.
  2. Since 1 July 1975 to June 1980 Australia Post (1) has rented computing equipment at a cost of approximately $351,000 and (2) has purchased computing equipment at a cost of approximately $ 1 ,34 1 ,000.

Postal and Telecommunications Department: Employees Born Overseas (Question No. 6031)

Dr Cass:

asked the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, upon notice, on 29 April 1980:

  1. How many persons born overseas (indicating country of birth) are employed by his Department.
  2. How many of these persons are employed on a (a) temporary and (b) permanent basis and in what classifications are they employed.
  3. How many bi-lingual and multi-lingual staff members are employed by his Department in counter situations and/or in close contact with members of the public.
  4. Does his Department have translating facilities; if so, (a) what languages are involved and (b) how many persons are working in the area and what are their classifications.
  5. If his Department does not have interpreting and translating facilities, what arrangements are made for performing these tasks.
Mr Staley:
LP

-The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. and (2) Collective statistics on employees’ countries of birth are not maintained and I am not prepared to authorise the use of the extensive resources which would be involved in manually extracting the information required for appointment records.
  2. There are fifty-two staff members employed by my Department who may assist in counter situations with members of the public.
  3. and (5) My Department does not have staff engaged full time on translating duties but those who are fluent in a foreign language are available to assist in appropriate situations. Twenty-four foreign languages are covered in this way.

Superannuation (Question No. 61 10)

Mr Leo McLeay:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 1 4 May 1 980:

What percentage of the Australian workforce is covered

by (i) Commonwealth Government, (ii) State Government and (iii) private enterprise superannuation schemes and

by superannuation schemes administered by (i) Commonwealth authorities, (ii) State authorities and (iii) local government authorities.

Mr Howard:
LP

-The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

The necessary statistical information that would enable me to provide answers to the specific points raised in the honourable member’s question is not available. There was, however, a household survey (‘Survey of Superannuation’- Reference No. 6.42) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in February 1974 which indicated the following coverage at that time by superannuation schemes:

57.5 per cent of government employees (i.e. employees of Commonwealth, State, local and semigovernment employers but excluding Defence Force personnel) were covered; these covered persons represented 12.1 per cent of the employed labour force (excluding unpaid helpers) .

2 1 per cent of persons in private employment (i.e. employees of private employers, self employed persons and employers themselves) were covered; these covered persons represented 16.6 per cent of the employed labour force (excluding unpaid helpers).

The following information on Commonwealth schemes may be of assistance to the honourable member:

The principal Commonwealth Superannuation scheme is that established under the Superannuation Act 1976 and, as at 30 June 1979, it was estimated that there were 276,282 contributors to that scheme. Contributors to the scheme comprise persons employed under the Australian Public Service Act, the Northern Territory Public Service legislation and employees of certain prescribed Commonwealth authorities. However, separate figures for each of these contributor groups are not available.

There are over twenty superannuation schemes operated by Commonwealth bodies such as Qantas, TAA, Reserve Bank, OTC, Commonwealth Banking Corporation, etc., but these bodies are not required to publish information on the operation of their schemes. In addition a number of employees of the Australian National Railways Commission are members of the South Australian and Tasmanian superannuation schemes.

As at 30 June 1979 there were 70,371 members of the Defence Force contributing for retirement, death and other benefits under the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Act 1973.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics issued a publication (Catalogue No. 6332.0) containing the results of a survey conducted throughout Australia during the period February to May 1979 in order to obtain information about a range of employment benefits provided by employers to employees. The publication includes information on superannuation benefits received by employees who usually worked 20 hours or more per week.

On 1 February 1978 the Bureau published a bulletin entitled ‘Public Authority Pension and Superannuation Schemes 1975-76’ (Catalogue No. 551 1.0) which includes information on membership of public authority superannuation schemes.

With regard to the extent of superannuation coverage by the State Government schemes and schemes administered by State Government and local government authorities, the honourable member might wish to consider seeking information on the points he has raised from relevant State Government Ministers.

Shorter Working Week (Question No. 6165)

Mr Hodges:

asked the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, upon notice, on 21 May 1980:

  1. Following the introduction of the 36) hour working week for Telecom Australia employees, did it take more than three years before a memorandum of understanding was offered for signature to non-unionists in order that they could be accepted for the shorter working week; if so, why was there such a delay.
  2. Did a minute from the Industrial Relations Branch of Telecom Australia state that because of the sensitive nature of the shorter working week for non-unionists and the possibility of adverse union reaction, it is essential that this matter be handled as discreetly as possible; if so, why was so much secrecy associated with the offer to non-unionists to sign the memorandum of understanding.
  3. Is it a fact that at the time of introduction of the 36* hour week only the Australian Telecommunications Employees’ Association had an agreement with Telecom.
  4. Did Telecom complete agreements with all other unions before members of those unions were entitled to work the shorter 36* hour week; if so, what are the (a) names of the unions and (b) dates on which the agreements were signed,
  5. Was the 36* hour week granted by Telecom provided that unionists agreed to increase productivity by 8 per cent; if so, what mechanisms or processes are used to ensure the 8 per cent productivity increase in achieved.
Mr Staley:
LP

-The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Yes. The then Postmaster-General’s Department commenced investigation and negotiation of a 36) hour week for members of the Australian Telecommunications Employees’ Association in 1974 as a result of a decision of the previous Government. Subsequently, the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission ratified an agreement between Telecom Australian and the ATEA which had the effect of introducing a shorter working week for members of the Association as from 1 February 1976.

Subsequently, following negotiations with staff associations and ratification by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, shorter hours were extended to the following unions/staff associations:

Telecommunication Technical Officers’ Association (from 1 February 1976)

Australian Public Service Artisans’ Association (from 6 June 1976)

Australian Postal and Telecommunications Union (from 27 March 1977)

Line Inspectors’ Association, now External Plant Officers’ Association (from 27 March 1977)

Association of Architects, Engineers, Surveyors and Draughtsmen of Australia (from 27 March 1 977)

Australian Public Service Association (Fourth Division Officers) (from 27 March 1977)

Federated Miscellaneous Workers’ Union (from 27 March 1977)

Australian Telephone and Phonogram Officers’ Association (from 5 November 1978)

Telecom Australia could not undertake proceedings in the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission on behalf of non-unionists. It was determined by the Australian Telecommunications Commission to implement a 36* hour week for non-unionists by Determination under the Telecommunications Act 1975. This administrative action was undertaken as soon as possible after a majority of staff who had previously been working more than 36* hours per week and had been granted a shorter working week.

  1. The Australian Telecommunications Commission decided during 1979 that as a shorter working week had been granted by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to most Telecom employees then the benefit should be extended to all employees whether members of a union/staff association or not. Each non-unionist was approached personally and requested to enter into an agreement with Telecom, the detail of which was similar to that reached with unions and staff associations. Telecom Australia regarded the negotiations of the individual productivity agreements as being a personal matter for discussion between the individual and

Telecom management. As with all matters of a personal nature there is a need for the discussions to be held discreetly, and in one State this was specifically referred to in an ‘In Confidence’ management document.

  1. The Clerical/ Administrative group has been working a 361 hour week since Federation and professional engineering staff and members of the Australian Public Service Association (Fourth Division Officers) have been working a 364 hour working week for many years. The Australian Telecommunications Employees’ Association was the first staff association, whose members were working more than 36) hours per week, to negotiate a shorter working week agreement with Telecom Australia. As outlined in the answer to (1 ) above the other Unions/Associations whose members were working more than 361 hours per week subsequently negotiated similar agreements.
  2. See answer to ( 1 ) above.
  3. The 361 hour week granted by Telecom Australia to both unionists and non-unionists makes provision for an increase in productivity totalling 8 per cent. There were a number of management information systems in existence at the time the shorter working week was introduced. These systems are used to monitor performance and productivity and were used to monitor, pre and post shorter working hours, and it has been ascertained that the required productivity increase is being met. Also the budgets and estimates were revised in accordance with the required productivity increase and these revised estimates are being achieved in accordance with the appropriate agreements. There were other criteria to be met apart from the 8 per cent increase in productivity; they were, that existing service standards to the customer were to be maintained, no increase in overtime and no increase in staff as a result of the introduction of the shorter working week. The management information systems indicate that these criteria continue to be achieved.

Registration and Operation of Road Freight Vehicles (Question No. 6266)

Mr Morris:
SHORTLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 19 August 1980:

  1. Can he indicate what are the principal differences between the States in regulations governing the registration and operation of road freight vehicles.
  2. Can he further state what has been the effect of the differing regulations in respect of (a) costs of manufacture of road vehicles, (b) operating costs of interstate road freight vehicles, (c) transport efficiency and freight rates and (d) road safety.
  3. Has the Federal Government taken any steps in the past 5 years to achieve uniform road registration requirements for road freight vehicles, if so, what were they.
  4. Does the Federal Government propose to take steps to achieve uniform road registration requirements; if so, what is proposed.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Information on State regulations governing the registration and operation of road freight vehicles is best sought from those State Government authorities which have the appropriate regulatory role. However, at the national level, standards relating to the safety aspects of freight vehicle registration and operation, as agreed by the Australian Transport Advisory Council, are found in

    1. the Australian Design Rules for Motor Vehicle Safety
    2. the Draft Regulations Defining Vehicle Construction, Equipment and Performance Standards for Road Vehicles
    3. the National Road Traffic Code.

The Design Rules are applied uniformly Australia wide at the point of first registration. State and Territory legislation in Australia incorporates the majority of requirements set out in the Draft Regulations and the Traffic Code.

  1. There is no information available on the effect of differing regulations with respect to costs of manufacture or operation of interstate road freight vehicles or transport efficiency and freight rates. In respect of road safety it is unlikely that differences in State regulations have a large effect on accidents as the vast majority of accidents involve drivers within their State of residence.
  2. Progress towards uniformity in road registration requirements and other road laws is discussed regularly at meetings of ATAC. Two of its advisory committees, the Advisory Committee on Safety in Vehicle Design and the Advisory Committee on Vehicle Performance are responsible for recommending Australian Design Rules and Draft Regulations for ATAC’s consideration.

Since 1975 the following Design Rules relating to road freight vehicles have been endorsed:

ADR 28A Motor Vehicle Noise

ADR 30 Diesel Engine Exhaust Smoke Emissions

ADR 32 Seats Belts for Heavy Vehicles

ADR 32A Seat Belts for Heavy Vehicles

ADR 35 Commercial Vehicle Braking Systems

ADR 35A Commercial Vehicle Braking Systems

ADR 36 Exhaust Emission Control for Heavy Duty Vehicles.

Since 1975, Draft Regulations have been revised or introduced on the following aspects of freight vehicle safety and operations: revision of in-service noise requirements specification of maximum turning circle for combinations of vehicle and trailer

Code of Loading Practice

Code of Model Specifications and Control Conditions for Road Trains

Code of Practice for Omnibus Operators Maintenance

  1. Work is proceeding within the ATAC forum to progressively increase the level of uniformity for road registration requirements.

Road Laws: Lack of Uniformity (Question No. 6267)

Mr Morris:

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 19 August 1980:

  1. Can he state what are the specific areas of road laws, State by State, in which there is a lack of uniformity.
  2. Can he further state what have been the results of the lack of uniformity in road laws in Australia in respect of (a) road safety, (b) transport efficiency and (c) additional costs of manufacture of road vehicles.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

-The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. A substantial degree of uniformity in the intent of road traffic laws has been achieved, the main differences insofar as they could potentially affect safety being giving way requirements at intersections in Victoria and Western Australia differ in some respects from other States general open road speed limits are not uniform, being either 100 km/h or 1 10 km/h drink/driving legislation varies in matters of detail and enforcement procedures the meaning of various longitudinal pavement markings such as double centre lines and unbroken lane lines is not uniform.

It is not possible to list all aspect of non-uniformity in the laws as such information, in the level of detail sought, is not presently available. Furthermore, uniformity or its lack is not only a reflection of variation in the law but also of its administration or enforcement.

  1. No information is available with regard to the results of lack of uniformity in respect of transport efficiency or additional costs of manufacture. With regard to road safety it is unlikely that differences in road traffic law have a large effect on accidents. The vast majority of accidents- about 95 per cent- involve drivers within their State of residence. There is no information available on the extent to which nonuniformity of traffic laws was a factor in the remaining accidents.

Transport Planning and Research (Question No. 6271)

Mr Morris:

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 19 August 1980:

  1. Did the then Minister for Transport state, in his second reading speech for the Transport Planning and Research (Financial Assistance) Bill 1977 (Hansard. 27 October 1977, page 2523) that the Government was prepared to contribute its share of funding under the legislation on a dollar for dollar basis of a total program maintained at the 1977-78 level in real terms for the years 1978-79 and 1979-80.
  2. Had the Commonwealth’s participation previously been on a two for one basis; if so, what is the justification for the reduction in Commonwealth support.
  3. What was the Commonwealth’s contribution under the Act for 1977-78 and 1979-80.
  4. What is the Commonwealth’s contribution to be in 1980-81.
  5. What is the percentage change, in money terms, in Commonwealth contributions for 1979-80 and 1980-81.
  6. What is the reason for any change in Commonwealth contribution in 1979-80 and 1981-81.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Yes.
  2. Attention is invited to the answer to Parliamentary Question No. 3471 (Hansard. 29-30 May 1979, page 2619).
  3. The Commonwealth’s contribution under the Transport Planning and Research (Financial Assistance) Act for 1977-78 was $8,000,000; that for 1979/80 was $6,916,389.
  4. $6,250,000.
  5. In 1979/80, the Commonwealth’s contribution was 8.0 per cent more than the amount provided in 1978/79. In 1980/81, it is 9.6 per cent less than in 1979/80.
  6. The Commonwealth’s contribution to the program in 1979/80 and 1980/81 was determined on budgetary grounds.

Road Accidents (Question No. 6307)

Mr Les McMahon:
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 20 August 1 980:

  1. 1 ) How many road accidents were there in each State for each of the last 10 years.
  2. How many of these accidents involved 2 or more vehicles.
  3. How many persons were (a) killed or (b) injured in these accidents.
  4. How many of the drivers involved in these accidents were later found to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
  5. How many persons were convicted as a result of these accidents and what was the average length of their sentences.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Table 1.
  2. Table 2.
  3. (a) Table 3; (b) Table 4.
  4. and (5) State and Territory administrations do not compile information of this nature and therefore it is not available on a national basis.

Road Safety (Question No. 6312)

Mr Morris:

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 20 August 1980:

Will he update the information provided in the answer to Senate question No. 1844 (Senate Hansard, 25 September 1 979, page 946) concerning road and motorcycle safety.

Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

-The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

Information which has become available since 25 September 1979 to update parts (I), (2) (a) and (5) of question No. 1844 is:

Total motorcycles on register at 30 June increased each year from 1965 to 1977 but decreased in 1978 and 1979. The number of new motorcycle registrations decreased in each year from 1973-74 to 1978-79 but increased in 1979-80. Official figures for June 1980 are not yet available.

Commonwealth Government expenditure on road safety in general in 1 979-80 was S 1 6,348, 1 1 9.

The Office of Road Safety budget allocation for road safety promotion and research was underspent by some

SI 25,000 in 1979-80 or approximately 16 per cent due to resource limitations and commissioning constraints.

Prices Policies (Question No. 6343)

Dr Everingham:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 20 August 1980:

  1. 1 ) Did the Curtin and Chifley Governments prevent price rises by freezing costs unless the price taker could demonstrate increased input cost outside the freeze, as in the case of imported raw materials.
  2. Is it a fact that the prices policies outlined in Commonwealth Year Book No. 36, page 404, halted or almost halted inflation at a time of general economic shortages due to war which occupied one in seven of Autralia’s workforce, the highest proportion of any of the belligerent nations.
  3. Were subsidies introduced at the point of approved or recognised cost increases to preserve profit margins while not increasing consumer costs of CPI items or eroding wage values.
  4. Will the Government negotiate with State pricing authorities, the Prices Justification Tribunal, employer and employee organisations and Conciliation and Arbitration Commissions to introduce such controls on all costs of production of whole grains, unprocessed dairy and horticultural products and other health promoting and CPI items excluding social drugs and luxuries.
Mr Howard:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Various schemes designed to control prices were introduced during the course of the Second World War under the Commonwealth Government’s wartime powers; the first such scheme was introduced in September 1939 and a scheme involving the freezing of prices and costs was introduced in 1943.
  2. The Retail Price Index continued to rise appreciably during the early years of the war but remained virtually static in the period 1943-1945.
  3. A scheme involving the payment of subsidies to prevent price increases was introduced in April 1 943.
  4. No. While the measures referred to above may have been appropriate in a war economy they would not be acceptable or appropriate in current circumstances. Controls and subsidies do not come to grips with the primary causes of inflation and make it more difficult to implement policies which do.

Commonwealth Ombudsman (Question No. 6345)

Dr Everingham:

asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 20 August 1980:

  1. 1 ) What steps have been taken to investigate claims by the Newcastle Morning Herald to the Commonwealth Ombudsman, referred to in the National Times, 18 to 24 May 1980, page 12.
  2. Will the Government undertake to seek compensation from the German Government for Australian war prisoners placed in concentration camps and their dependants.
Mr Peacock:
Minister for Foreign Affairs · KOOYONG, VICTORIA · LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. The Department of Foreign Affairs has approached other Australian Government Departments and individuals known to have been interned in concentration camps in an effort to determine the approximate number of persons who could be involved in any claim for compensation.

    1. The Government has undertaken to approach the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany regarding compensation for Australians who were interned in concentration camps.

Strategy for Limited Nuclear War (Question No. 6366)

Mr Holding:

asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 20 August 1980:

  1. 1 ) Can he state what are the precise terms of United States of America Presidential Directive 59 which set out a new U.S. strategy for limited Nuclear War.
  2. What attitude does the Australian Government take towards this strategy.
  3. Has the Australian Government or any of its representatives been engaged in any discussion with United States of America representatives to spell out the implications of this strategy for United States of America-Australian relations and its effect on existing treaty commitments; if so, will he provide details of the discussions.
  4. Has any review of Australian foreign policy been carried out following the signing of that directive; if so, (a) what is Australia’s attitude with respect to the Australian-United States of America alliance as at 20 August 1980 and (b) can he state what changes have been made as a result of any review.
Mr Peacock:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. 1 ) Presidential Directive 59 is a classified document and its precise terms have not been released outside the United States Administration.
  2. , (3) and (4) The United States Government has confirmed that the countervailing strategy set forth in Presidential Directive 59 does not represent a major break with past policies but the latest stage in the evolutionary development over many years of United States doctrine. Australian governments have been, and continue to be, kept informed of developments in United States nuclear strategy. Such developments are fully reflected in the continuous process through which Australian defence and foreign policy is formed. Australia, along with the other two partners, retains its strong support for the ANZUS alliance. Recent international events have served to emphasise its value.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Question No. 6382)

Mr Hurford:

asked the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, upon notice, on 20 August 1980:

  1. 1 ) Has a revised system of value for duty been determined under the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs negotiations.
  2. ls Australia a party to the revised Agreement; if so, when will the revised system come into operation.
  3. Did customs officials issue written instructions or conduct training courses on the manner of operation of the revised system before Parliament enacted the appropriate legislation; if so, will he take steps to ensure this does not recur.
Mr Garland:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. Yes.
  2. Australia is not yet a party to the Agreement. Its laws, regulations and administrative procedures must first conform with the provisions of the Agreement. The Government has decided to adopt the new system in Australia from 1 July 1981.
  3. An Information Paper on the Agreement was prepared by the Department of Business and Consumer Affairs and I sent copies to all Members of Parliament in February this year. Copies of this paper, as well as of the Agreement itself, have also been made available to the public including industrial and commercial organisations. Explanatory talks on the Agreement have been given to interested groups. No written instructions have been issued or training courses conducted on the manner of operation of a revised system of value for duty; nor can they be until the appropriate legislation is enacted.

Taxation (Question No. 6409)

Mr Humphreys:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND

asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 21 August 1980:

  1. 1 ) Is it a fact that bona fide de facto couples receiving the married rate of social security pension or benefit are not considered as married couples by the Australian Taxation Office and are not eligible for deductions provided to married couples.
  2. Where de facto couples receiving the married rate of social security pension or benefit receive one combined cheque from the Department of Social Security, does the Australian Taxation Office impose tax on that total sum at the relevant rate of levy tax on both recipients for half the total income at the relevant rate.
  3. Has the Australian Taxation Office received (a) oral or (b) written complaints that there is an anomaly in the assessment of de facto couples (i) between the Department of Social Security and the Australian Taxation Office and (ii) within the Australian Taxation Office itself.
  4. If there is substance to these complaints, will he introduce legislation to correct these anomalies.
Mr Howard:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. 1 ) Yes. The concessional rebate provided in the Income Tax Assessment Act for a dependant spouse applies only where the parties are legally married.
  2. A social security pension or benefit which is not specifically exempt from income tax represents assessable income of the recipient.
  3. Yes.
  4. Eligibility for social security pensions and benefits and entitlement to income tax dependant rebates are distinct and separate matters controlled by separate policies and statutory provisions. The relevant provisions of the income tax law - the underlying policy of which has remained constant since 1936- apply to all de facto relationships, not only to those where the parties are in receipt of social security benefits.

M.V.’Cape Moreton’ (Question No. 6413)

Mr Humphreys:

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 21 August 1980:

  1. Has he received complaints concerning delays in payment of the crew of M.V. Cape Moreton; if so, (a) what was the nature of the complaints, (b) have delays in payment occurred; if so, how long have the delays been and (c) what action was taken by him in respect of these complaints.
  2. Is he able to say whether delays in payment experienced by the crew of M.V. Cape Moreton resulted in serious personal inconvenience for any of the crew; if so, what was the nature of the inconvenience, and is it the intention of his Department to compensate the crew member or crew member inconvenienced.
  3. Are attempts being made to remove from service one of the present 3 Cape vessels; if so, are delays in payment and other industrial matters concerning M.V. Cape Moreton crew associated with these attempts.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. A complaint was received by telegram on 5 May 1980, concerning delays in payment to the crew of M.V. Cape Moreton. The signatories to the telegram were the Queensland State Secretary of the Customs Officers Association of Australia and two other members of that Association, together with one member from each of the Merchant Service Guild of Australia, the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers, and the Professional Radio and Electronics Institute of Australia.

    1. the complaint concerned an alleged non-payment of salary to a number of crew, who were engaged in Cairns for specific periods of employment as temporary relief staff.
    2. the salaries of all departmental staff are paid fortnightly through the Department of Finance computerised payroll system.

Of the fifteen short-term relief crew on the MV Cape Moreton concerned, one commenced duty on 10 April, thirteen on 12 April and one on 23 April being ten, eight and one working days respectively before the next payday of 24 April.

Advice of their commencement was not received from the ship in the Central Office pay group, Melbourne, in sufficient time to enable payment to be made on that payday. Efforts were made to arrange special payments but these were thwarted by the Department of Finance computer rejecting the entries. Salary cheques for duty up to and including 7 May 1980 were despatched on S May 1980.

  1. the telegram regarding this matter was sent to office on 5 May 1980 when action had already been taken to effect the necessary salary payments. Internal procedures have been reviewed and amended to avoid a recurrence and the problem with the Department of Finance computer has been rectified.

    1. I am not able to say whether any of the crew has experienced serious personal inconvenience as a result of this matter.
    2. One of the three Cape Class vessels has been declared surplus to Department of Transport requirements. This is unlikely to mean its removal from general government service. The future deployment of the vessel is subject to deliberation by an inter-departmental committee under the chairmanship of the Department of Administrative Services. This is unassociated with any industrial matters concerning M.V. Cape Moreton.

Australian National Railways (Question No. 6430)

Mr Wallis:
GREY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 26 August 1980:

Have negotiations been taking place between the Australian National Railways and the Housing Trust of South Australia regarding the disposal of ANR houses and land to the Trust at Port Augusta, SA, and other railway locations; if so, what progress has been made.

Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

AN R has been negotiating with the Housing Trust of SA on the possibility that the Trust will take over ANR houses and land at Port Augusta only. A condition of the transfer would be that the Trust makes available to ANR sufficient houses to meet ANR staff requirements.

The Trust has been supplied with details of the houses and their response is awaited.

Child-minding Services (Question No. 6432)

Mr Humphreys:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 26 August 1980:

  1. Has his attention been drawn to reports that single parents who work to support their children often require the use of child-minding services or facilities at substantial cost to themselves.
  2. Are single parents able to claim this cost as a tax deduction; if not, why not.
Mr Howard:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. 1 ) I am aware that there have been such reports.
  2. No. This question was considered by the High Court in 1972 in Lodge v. F.C. of T., reported in Volume 128 of the Commonwealth Law Reports at page 171. The Court held that there was no provision in the Income Tax Assessment Act to permit such costs to be allowed as a deduction.

Diego Garcia (Question No. 6448)

Mr Holding:

asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 27 August 1980:

  1. Is he able to say whether the Organisation of Africa Unity has exerted pressure for the return of Diego Garcia to Mauritius; if so, what attitude has Australia adopted.
  2. Has Australia made any diplomatic representations on this matter; if so, (a) what was the substance of these representations, (b) when and to whom were they made and (c) what was the response.
Mr Peacock:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. The Organisation of African Unity adopted a unanimous resolution at its summit meeting in Freetown, Sierra Leone in July 1980 which demanded that Diego Garcia be unconditionally returned to Mauritius. Australia recognises the United Kingdom’s sovereignty over Diego Garcia.
  2. The Australian Government has not made any diplomatic representations on this matter.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 10 September 1980, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1980/19800910_reps_31_hor119/>.